Does anyone else ride bicycles?

[JasperFrank]

If I were looking for a road bike, It would be a Schwinn Continental. Just because I had one in High School

Tubular forks, sew ups, down tube shifters, Lycet seat,

But I live a mile from pavement, flats suck!

I would not recommend a Schwinn. Even though I loved my Varsity and Conti. Every classic bike maker, was country specific in its threading. Schwinn was no different, and when they got sold off, all the tooling changed. The older Schwinns became a bear to work on, cause near everything on the originals, was Schwinn specific. Parts got hard to find. I had much better interchangeabiliy, with English, Italian and French Classics.

 

[KennyG]

Pictures were requested, so here are some.
I've had this Trek 1000C for over 25 years. It's not high tech (aluminum frame, 3 x 8 gears, about 23 lbs) but it's a nice ride and very reliable. I've put a lot of miles on it and only replaced tires and chains.

Almost 20 years ago I got ambitious and decided I wanted a lightweight bike. I built up an Origin8 carbon frame. This bike is mostly carbon fiber. Besides the frame, the rims, seat post, crank arms and even the bottle cage and axle skewer levers are carbon. It comes in right on 16 lbs with pedals. It's a little tight with narrow bars and a frame that will accept a maximum tire size of 23mm, but I've ridden it a lot. The SRAM kit is wearing out so I'm trying to decide if I'm going to rebuild it or not.

My current best bike is a 2 year old Trek Domane. It's not a real performance bike with 2x12 Shimano 105 gearing and about 19 lbs, but it's almost as fast as the Origin8. With disc brakes and a very comfortable ride, it's nice for the long rides. It came with 32mm tubeless tires but I will probably change those out this winter for 25s or 28s and see how that works.

 

[George_B]

Have you ever fallen off a set of rollers? ;-)

I have, It's a real riot! Going no where at speed.

I use the rollers all winter, out in the shop, Lathe on one side, work bench on the other!

Way better than a stationary, You need to pay attention! FOCUS is why we ride!

I've fallen off rollers when I first started riding on them many years ago, put a hole in the drywall.....good times.

 

[George_B]

My road bike and recumbent don't see much road action anymore.

 

[George_B]

I'm holding out before having the indoor bike as my primary.

I get that, but for me there were too many close calls and a growing number of idiot drivers. Everytime I went out I'd think to myself "is this going to be my last ride?"

 

[tacticalturnip]

I just remembered what my bike is, a Fuji Crosstown 2.0. Every few years I bring it to a local bike shop and ask the fellow to go over it. I'm ignorant about what he does, but I refuse to let this thing rot.

If I post a picture of the shifters could anyone recommend a video that explains them?

 

[anomad]

These two bikes were my daily drivers for years. I have always tried to live where I could bike to work, could even walk in one small town. Moved all over out west for most of my career till 2016 when I moved to the DC Beltway (gag). 5 years of 25ish miles a day commuting. In DC if you take public transportation you are screwed. If you drive you are screwed. Biking was the only way for me to live in an unincorporated county area on the Virginia side and be independently in control of my transportation. We can talk about why that is important in another thread. I became full time remote at first and recently retired. I'm not riding 5000 commuting miles a year now! Or racing like when I was young.

This is a NASHBAR generic aluminum touring frame with steel touring fork. It's riding on 36 spoke wheels and has some hodge podge Shimano 3x9 drivetrain. TRP brakes. You can make out all my light mounts and random stuff. Wonderful bike. I put it all together with the stuff I wanted.

This beauty is an REI/Novara Randonee I bought new in 1997. I was 25. I've worn out a set of wheels on it, I figured they lasted 20-25k miles. Wore out an RSX drivetrain on it and started an experiment. Put a Surly crank and stainless single chainring up front and 8 speed in the back. Simple downtube shifter. My favorite 2-3 gears almost perfectly aligned for mostly flat riding along the parkway in DC. This bike fits like my favorite pair of pants. You can see both bikes have racks so you can drop your Ortliebs on there with all you need for the office.

Getting more into the test I was doing regarding chain life. I had steel front chain rings in very straight alignment for my 2-3 favorite gears on basically flat ground. I was just oiling one and doing the clean and oil routine on the other. Once full time remote hit I wasn't able to collect enough data to say. But my hunch is just oiling your chain is enough unless you demand absolute efficiency or it gets covered in mud while mountain biking.

 

[rontaki]

I

I used to ride an old, heavy mountain bike in the hills. Due to lack-of-balance issues, the bike now collects dust.
I am looking to get back on the trails and roads with one of these e-assist fat tire trikes:

View attachment 4189538

I just bought one from a semi-local shop. Should be ready to pick up in a few days. Can't wait to ride over stuff!

 

[KennyG]

I just remembered what my bike is, a Fuji Crosstown 2.0. Every few years I bring it to a local bike shop and ask the fellow to go over it. I'm ignorant about what he does, but I refuse to let this thing rot.

If I post a picture of the shifters could anyone recommend a video that explains them?

It looks like that bike has standard SRAM twist grip shifters. All the shifters operate basically the same. You just have to tighten the cable to take the slack out. There are high and low limit screws that keep the chain from going off the high or low side of the sprocket set. Once you've done it, it all makes sense. Just go on YouTube and there are all kinds of videos. It's fine to take a bike into a shop and let the professionals work on it but unless the wheels are out of round there isn't anything beyond the average person.

 

[subhunter]

Runner you need to get one of the front wheel trainers. You could double
your workout.