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Today’s Spokespeople:
Racing
- Paris-Roubaix
- UCI disc brake decision
- Electronic Doping (Thermal Camera Video)
- Enrico Gasparotto of Wanty Groupe wins Amstel Gold race- dedicating win to Antoine Demoitié
Industry News
- New Facebook Group wants to help Bicycle Mechanics
- Sea Otter
- Counterfeit articles – all 22 of ‘em
- What do all the Bankruptcies in the US mean
Other
Tips, Hints and Best Practices
- Don’t get involved in accidents with vehicles and get surgery on broken bones because it really sucks (Tim)
- http://nemba.org/ (Donna) Get out and help your local mountain bike association clean trails.
- Pebblebee Stone (Jim)
How to Listen:
Welcome Chris!
Jensen USA is awesome! They put my LBS to shame when it comes to delivering quality parts on time. They are just way more welcoming than the LBS, sadly.
RE: crash not accident > I’ll accept “accident” if I see the word “alleged” in front of it.
RE: Interbike and other trade shows spoiling the surprise of new products,
I’d say sites like Bike Rumor probably reach more consumers.
Re: Counterfeit bikes
I’m currently living in Australia where Carbon bikes seem to be the norm not the exception. Arguably the country faces an obesity epidemic, however….. roads here are good!
It is anecdotal, but I dont know a single person who has ridden a carbon frame in any discipline and is a regular rider, and has not had an issue with a cracked frame of some kind. Cafe conversations are full of “my bike has been sent back to dealer” stories.
I think people are inclined towards OEM/Direct frames because the economics and service claims from big brand companies often don’t stack up, or don’t represent fair value for the consumer.
Re: Disc brakes on motocross motorcycles:
A) Many MX bikes don’t have disc-brake covers
B) When they do, they’re there to protect the rotors from damage, not the riders from injury
C) Disc brakes aren’t dangerous
From a longtime motorcycle/mountain bike/road bike rider
Please do not be PC and change your name! A female can be a spokesman, so can a giraffe or anything else.
Great podcast as always
It’s interesting that the only incident of a rider being injured by a disc brake I’ve ever heard of is the Roubaix incident. Pretty good treatment of that here:
http://road.cc/content/tech-news/186146-have-disc-brakes-really-led-injuries-peloton
I’ve got some personal experience with the whole “top brand” vs “black market” frame safety issue. On Jan 31st the stock fork on my Wilier failed catastrophically. (I’m one of those guys who sent a photo to Jim.)
Meanwhile, I don’t know of anyone
Meanwhile, if the difference between a “brand” and a black market frame fork is that, if you have a catastrophic fork failure at 50 mph on a downhill, then the “name brand” will (as Jim put it “will fix it for you” color me unimpressed.
Look, name brands are failing. Paying more is not going to insulate you from these failures. Life doesn’t work that way.
Great show as always; somehow, you seem to keep getting better. Chris is a fantastic addition, and keep Donna coming back.
Hi Andy – no worries….I’ve proudly been a spokesman for 10 years now…I’m good with it!
And, Dan…you made my day…thank you! I love being on the show and appreciate that the gang keeps me coming back even after being away for a bit because of my schedule. I make as many shows as I can. Soooo…..you’ll be giving me my next tip, though, right? 😉
Thanks, again!
While the bike industry collectively utilises a trivial amount of CF, its not as little as a single manufacturer using less than what goes into a single wind turbine blade. Blades, historically have actually been made of resin reinforced glass and carbon fiber would actually allow for lightening the blade enough to make a breakthrough to larger blades. Anyhow, even the largest of blades at 80m to 100m for a conceivalbe 8-10mW turbine would weigh about 35mT if made out of CF…30-50% of which would actually be resin…leaving 17ish mT of CF. While bike manufacturers actually seem pretty hush-hush about how much CF they use, they proudly advertise waste quantities that avoid landfills. Trek apparently keeps 24.5mT of waste out of landfills with recent recycle / capture efforts. That being the case, the waste alone already exceeds CF used in the signle largest possible wind turbine blade.
Alex – just to add to your comment – I live in Brisbane. I had been riding the one carbon frame (name brand) for 4 years without any issue. The frame is now toast, but that was due to a car running me down.
I have heard some of the cafe talk you speak about, but I haven’t perceived it as chronic. Although I would say I have heard more report of MTB rear triangles breaking rather than road or MTB frames.
Enjoy the show and the panel members.
Cheers,
Chris.