Go on…
Edit: not that any of these would fit me, but it’s fun seeing what’s out there.
Dithering
I’ll buy purple anything
Don’t think I haven’t looked at the purple pics everyday wondering if I made the right decision ordering the green.
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speaking of old step-thru stuff … I used to have a teensy little 20" or something folding bike from the '70s (I think this is my only pic of it) that I loved having as an around-town kind of bike. Are all of these little old bikes folding ones like this or are there non-folding ones too? I have a hankering …
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Drilled my canti mounts a bit and moved the rack up higher to get more tire clearance.
I’m ok with it.
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first, i want to say congrats on the unanimous tarcklebee for worst bike picture ever
second, raleigh made nonfolding twenties. i’d love one, please buy two and send one to me
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it is a very good picture of what it feels like in those idle central valley summer evenings, when a sunset lasts a day and a half, when you take three hours to go two miles, dripping like honey, or like some sort of inverse tule fog, the whole world so hot that it is turning into vapor, the trees hazy around the edges, the dirt becoming a smell, tomato fields that rise up to your nose, asphalt that’s soft, and you in that lazy mist of green and purple shadows, a Wayne Thiebaud cake, floating home to open all the windows again and turn your un-air conditioned box back into a permeable cell
but a terrible pic of a bike
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urf ok i need some hivemind help. do you have arcane non-brifter dropbar cable pull knowledge?
i am attempting to enter my fopchariot era:
These brake levers simply do not pull enough cable to run the disc brake calipers. Levers go to the bars before adequate braking is generated, even with compressionless housing, even with the shorter housing run on the front, with Shimano BR-CX77 calipers, or Juin Tech GT-P calipers, or Growtac Equal calipers.
Does anyone know of any plain brake levers (not brifters) that pull more cable than older aero levers? I am not quite yet at the point of throwing in the towel and doing a SRAM doubletap setup.
Some nerdery below that you can skip if you want:
- Old shimano non-aero and “SLR” (added a return spring) brake levers apparently have a mechanical advantage of around 4
- “Super SLR” levers have an MA of around 3.5 (pull more cable)
- “New Super SLR” and “SLR EV” brifters have an MA of around 3 (pull even more cable).
I have gotten “Super SLR” ST-7700 9-speed brifters to work with disc brakes before, apparently the “Super SLR” of these BL-6403 levers isn’t the same.
I think Paul Klampers with the short Campy arm would work great but I feel like I should not own THREE bikes with klampies.
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Dia-Compe 287V were designed for use with “mountain” linear-pull brakes, and as such pull a lot of cable.
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Diamondback EXP came with TRP RRL/TRP Spyre and they worked really well together.
Sram S500 might be an option as well. IIRC those were popular for a sec at the end of the fixed gear boom when it conflated with SS cyclocross disc bikes.
ETA: Some guy on bikeforums calculated the MA of the S500 as 2.53
Might not be foppy enough but there’s a Tektro lever that works well with Spyres… the RL340, I think. Should work with the others.
have you owned TRP Hylex yet?
I really really like their hydro levers, the only caveat is that they can extend your fit for braking from the hoods
i have indeed owned hylex brakes at one point in time; i might even have half of a set in a bottom drawer somewhere… The extra-long hoods were super comfy but i’m not sure if the extra reach is going to work on this bike (peep that 70mm stem)
yeah this is kind of the way i’m leaning after poking around.
the other clear option is to pick a caliper that is known to work with short-short pull levers: the immortal BB7. but i inexplicably do not own a set, and getting a set of S500 levers to fool around with looks cheaper than getting a set of BB7s.
what are the handlebars on it now?
something like a Cinelli 64 would be very friendly to long lever bodies, both on the tops and in the hooks, potentially even being able to use a longer stem
I’ve been 2 for 2 with Hylex being fussy/leaky. Plus the hood shape is pretty meh (even adjusting for fit). The juintech/yoko jawns do it better in my experience and play great with Sram lever bodies.
I really wanted to like the Hylex.
Somewhat related…Can’t stress enough how great the Growtacs feel.
This is all clearly much more than just getting some BB7s and calling it done though.
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The Tektro RL520 also pull more cable. They will pull enough for normal v-brakes but that may be more cable pull than you need.
On my list
the original deep drop crust towel racks, in the “narrowest” widthway that’s still about 49cm at the hoods and 60cm at the tips of the drops.
oh this is dredging up some memories. don’t they have a bleed plug rather than a bleed nipple at the calipers?