Cheapo bike



Alan Braggins wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, Richard wrote:
>
>>half_pint wrote:
>>
>>
>>>As I said I spent £100 on a new bike and I have adjusted *nothing* in 5-6
>>>years.

>>
>>In message ID <[email protected]> where you say
>>
>>"I make the adjustment late at night in Sainsburys car park so
>>I didn't pay to much attention to what I was doing)."
>>
>>So is this not adjusting something?

>
>
> I'm curious as to what sort of brakes on a £100 bike can last 5-6 years
> in daily use without adjustment or servicing.


Maybe "daily use" is "100 yards to the newsagents and back, on the flat".

R.
 
Alan Braggins wrote:

> I'm curious as to what sort of brakes on a £100 bike can last 5-6 years
> in daily use without adjustment or servicing.


Ones that don't work?

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
 
[email protected] (Alan Braggins) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

> I'm curious as to what sort of brakes on a £100 bike can last 5-6 years
> in daily use without adjustment or servicing.


I'm curious as to what sort of brakes on /any/ bike can last 5-6 years
in daily use without adjustment or servicing.

--
Dave...
 
Dave Kahn wrote:

> I'm curious as to what sort of brakes on /any/ bike can last 5-6 years
> in daily use without adjustment or servicing.


The ones with big thick vibram-pattern pads which the rider applies to the
the tyre or road. I think I've heard them called "heavy boots"

--

Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
World Domination?
Just find a world that's into that kind of thing, then chain to the
floor and walk up and down on it in high heels. (Mr. Sunshine)
 
Jon Senior <jon_AT_restlesslemon_DOTco_DOT_uk> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> half_pint [email protected] opined the following...


> > Yes it is dependent on other factors too but weight is indeed one of them.

>
> Or mass, as is the preferred terminology of most scientists. In the
> context of a discussion of "falling due to gravity" the qualification of
> "weight" is unnecessary and makes you appear to be ignorant of the
> correct terms.


Unfortunately, many of the scientific persuasion are too stupid, or
too miseducated, to understand the simple fact that "weight" is an
ambiguous word, one with several different meanings.

Weight is never a force when anybody talks about "net weight", for
example.

Weight is never a force when anybody talks about "molecular weight";
or "atomic weight" or "formula weight" either. And those are
applications in science.

Weight is never a force when anybody talks about "troy weight".

Weight is never a force when anybody talks about "carat weight".

Weight is a force when people talk about "draw weight" of a bow--but
that force has nothing to do with gravity.

It's your option not to call this quantity weight. But that's your
only option. Unfortunately, you are like many scientists, so stupid
that you think you can continue to call it "weight" but to misapply a
definition which is inappropriate and incorrect in the context--thus
your claim of redundancy here.

In fact, if you are talking about something like the weight of
bananas, if you want to make it clear that you are talking about
something different than the normal quantity that is measured for this
purpose, one effective way to do that is to specify that you are
talking about the "force due to gravity". Furthermore, that's exactly
what the ASTM recommends in American Society for Testing and
Materials, Standard for Metric Practice, E 380-79, ASTM 1979.

3.4.1.2 Considerable confusion exists in the use of the
term weight as a quantity to mean either force or mass.
In commercial and everyday use, the term weight nearly
always means mass; thus, when one speaks of a person's
weight, the quantity referred to is mass. . . .

The use of force of gravity (mass times acceleration of
gravity) instead of weight with this meaning is
recommended. Because of the dual use of the term weight
as a quantity, this term should be avoided in technical
practice except under circumstances in which its meaning
is completely clear. When the term is used, it is
important to know whether mass or force is intended and
to use SI units properly as described in 3.4.1.1, by
using kilograms for mass or newtons for force.

Here are the keepers of the standards for the U.K.
NPL FAQ
http://www.npl.co.uk/force/faqs/forcemassdiffs.html

Weight
In the trading of goods, weight is taken to mean the
same as mass, and is measured in kilograms. Scientifically
however, it is normal to state that the weight of a body
is the gravitational force acting on it and hence it
should be measured in newtons, and this force depends
on the local acceleration due to gravity. To add to the
confusion, a weight (or weightpiece) is a calibrated mass
normally made from a dense metal, and weighing is
generally defined as a process for determining the
mass of an object.

So, unfortunately, weight has three meanings and care
should always be taken to appreciate which one is meant
in a particular context.

The keepers for the standards of the U.S.
http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/sec08.html

In any case, in order to avoid confusion, whenever the
word "weight" is used, it should be made clear which
meaning is intended.

The National Standard of Canada, CAN/CSA-Z234.1-89 Canadian Metric
Practice Guide, January 1989:

In scientific and technical work, the term "weight"
should be replaced by the term "mass" or "force,"
depending on the application.

So stop calling this quantity weight if you so choose. Just don't
insist that because somebody did call it weight that it must be the
force due to gravity, so it would be redundant to specify that.

When people talk about the "weight" of a bycycle or its components, it
is almost always mass and not the force due to gravity.

Gene Nygaard
 
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:54:29 -0000, "Dave Larrington"
<[email protected]> wrote in message
<[email protected]>:

>A "rowter" is a woodworking tool.


IRTA "woodworming tool"

Guy
--
"then came ye chavves, theyre cartes girded wyth candels
blue, and theyre beastes wyth straynge horn-lyke thyngs
onn theyre arses that theyre fartes be herde from myles
around." Chaucer, the Sheppey Tales
 
Gene Nygaard wrote:

> Weight is a force when people talk about "draw weight" of a bow--but
> that force has nothing to do with gravity.


IBTD. A bow's "draw-weight" is the force on the archer's fingertips,
usually specified at a particular draw length - and is expressed in
units of mass that would provide that "draw-weight" force due to gravity.

R.
 
Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:54:29 -0000, "Dave Larrington"
> <[email protected]> wrote in message
> <[email protected]>:
>
>> A "rowter" is a woodworking tool.

>
> IRTA "woodworming tool"


In my case, it's a woodruining tool...

--

Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
World Domination?
Just find a world that's into that kind of thing, then chain to the
floor and walk up and down on it in high heels. (Mr. Sunshine)
 
Gene Nygaard [email protected] opined the following...
> So stop calling this quantity weight if you so choose. Just don't
> insist that because somebody did call it weight that it must be the
> force due to gravity, so it would be redundant to specify that.


I'm not sure if this an attack on what I wrote or what half-wit wrote.
In the context of the preceding "discussion" the understanding was of
the force due to gravity. However, half-wit appeared to be confusing
this force with mass during earlier discussions, hence my clarification.
The definitions that you trotted out appeared to agree with what I was
saying, yet your threading of your post and the lack of direction of
your aggressive style make me unsure that that was what you had
intended.

> When people talk about the "weight" of a bycycle or its components, it
> is almost always mass and not the force due to gravity.


Except when half-wit talked about it earlier where he was referring to
the force due to gravity.

Please be more careful in future to follow threads properly and to post
in appropriate places. ;-)

Jon
 
In article <[email protected]>, Dave Kahn wrote:
>[email protected] (Alan Braggins) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
>
>> I'm curious as to what sort of brakes on a £100 bike can last 5-6 years
>> in daily use without adjustment or servicing.

>
>I'm curious as to what sort of brakes on /any/ bike can last 5-6 years
>in daily use without adjustment or servicing.


I thought it might be possible for some hub brakes. I've never used
them or disc brakes, but I've never seen them on a £100 bike either.
 
"Richard" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> half_pint wrote:
>
> > As I said I spent £100 on a new bike and I have adjusted *nothing* in

5-6
> > years.

>
> In message ID <[email protected]> where you say
>
> "I make the adjustment late at night in Sainsburys car park so
> I didn't pay to much attention to what I was doing)."
>
> So is this not adjusting something?


Yes it is but is not the second quote made after the first?
 
"Alan Braggins" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>, Richard wrote:
> >half_pint wrote:
> >
> >> As I said I spent £100 on a new bike and I have adjusted *nothing* in

5-6
> >> years.

> >
> >In message ID <[email protected]> where you say
> >
> >"I make the adjustment late at night in Sainsburys car park so
> >I didn't pay to much attention to what I was doing)."
> >
> >So is this not adjusting something?

>
> I'm curious as to what sort of brakes on a £100 bike can last 5-6 years
> in daily use without adjustment or servicing..


They are centre-pull calipers (if that is the correct term), I have never
made any adjustment to them whatsover, not sure what brand they are
it might say APSE or something similar.

Some of this low wear may be due to the way I ride, I basically avoid
having to brake, ie I time my approach to traffic lights, and basically
ignore
pesestrian crossings. I also take to the pavement if the all else fails.
If there are traffic lights at the bottom of a hill I learn the sequence
so I just wait at the top and time my descent so I go through at
maximum speed.
The brakes are great compared to rubbish had on my bike when I
as a little kid. (side pull, which never seemed to centre properly).
They also wore out pretty quickly.
 
"Richard" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Alan Braggins wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>, Richard wrote:
> >
> >>half_pint wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>As I said I spent £100 on a new bike and I have adjusted *nothing* in

5-6
> >>>years.
> >>
> >>In message ID <[email protected]> where you say
> >>
> >>"I make the adjustment late at night in Sainsburys car park so
> >>I didn't pay to much attention to what I was doing)."
> >>
> >>So is this not adjusting something?

> >
> >
> > I'm curious as to what sort of brakes on a £100 bike can last 5-6 years
> > in daily use without adjustment or servicing.

>
> Maybe "daily use" is "100 yards to the newsagents and back, on the flat".


Bit more than that, the nearest shop is about 250 yards and I virtually
always
walk that, I don't use a car so virtually all other journeys are cycled, not
long journeys, maybe 4-10 miles round trip, some flatish, some not so flat.

>
> R.
 
"Dave Kahn" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> [email protected] (Alan Braggins) wrote in message

news:<[email protected]>...
>
> > I'm curious as to what sort of brakes on a £100 bike can last 5-6 years
> > in daily use without adjustment or servicing.

>
> I'm curious as to what sort of brakes on /any/ bike can last 5-6 years
> in daily use without adjustment or servicing.



I am not sure, its says APSE or something similar.
>
> --
> Dave...
 
Richard <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Gene Nygaard wrote:
>
> > Weight is a force when people talk about "draw weight" of a bow--but
> > that force has nothing to do with gravity.

>
> IBTD. A bow's "draw-weight" is the force on the archer's fingertips,
> usually specified at a particular draw length - and is expressed in
> units of mass that would provide that "draw-weight" force due to gravity.
>
> R.


Fools who don't understand that pounds force exist are damn near as
dumb as the idiots who insist pounds are never units of mass.

The proper SI units for draw weight are newtons.

That "draw weight" does not depend on the local acceleration of
gravity. The units you use might depend on some arbitrary "standard"
acceleration of gravity--note that this is not the local acceleration
of gravity--but that doesn't mean that "draw weight" itself has
anything to do with gravity. Your bow will have the same "draw
weight" (in any of the units ever used for this purpose) on Mars that
it has on Earth--but it would take more mass there to exert the same
force due to gravity.

Gene Nygaard
 
On 2 Dec 2004 03:57:35 -0800, [email protected] wrote:

>
>> ride or harsh I don't know. However my cheap bike rides very well and
>> I would say it is reponsive. However going up a hill I wish it was a
>> bit lighter and won't deny it. I still think its a great little bike
>> for the money though and an excellent purchase.

>
>http://www.falconcycles.co.uk/product.php?c.id=7&s.id=1&p.id=382
>
>I bought my son an Optima stealth this year.It was about £130 setup by
>a proper bike shop.He thinks it is fine.
>I put some Specialised hemisphere armadillos on it from an old one and
>it needs mudguards to taste and the saddle I would replace if I were
>to sit on it for more than 1/2 hr.
>If I needed a warm-up or work bike for a few miles each way or for
>riding on paths and easy trails it would be fine.
>When bits wear out one will be faced with the decision of whether to
>spend half the cost of a new one on tyres and brake pads .
>It's not heavy, about 28lb.At this cost it's not much of a risk.I think
>the only problem that I might anticipate is early wear-out of
>bearings.Based on previous experience I will be surprised, because
>steel is cheap and hard.
>I hate the chunky nobbly tyres that these things come with.Other models
>come with smoother ones.
>I expect to spend some money on a bike to adapt it to what I want after
>purchase.This frame seems like a reasonable mount for better bits when
>you feel the need,though I wouldn't want to overstate that.
>
>I would rather pay 10 or 20 gbp more to a proper bike shop even at this
>price than get a box of bits with no-one to take it back to with
>problems.
>
>TerryJ


Thats exactly why a cycle shop is a good option for you but the Falcon
cycle in question is just a generic type chinese bike rebranded and no
better than baseline rigid aluminium bikes that can be got for £70-80
from the cheapest sources. They also have low cost 7005 aluminium
frames and high tensile steel forks. These bikes normally come 85%
assembled. You normally just screw in the peddles and turn the
handlebars round and tighten and you then have your fully assembled
bike, a small amount also need you to put on the front wheel. However
its best you give the bike a thorough check to make sure its setup
right. This is also true for a lot of bikes from cycle dealers as not
all LBS's are thorough in this area.
 
Jon Senior <jon_AT_restlesslemon_DOTco_DOT_uk> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Gene Nygaard [email protected] opined the following...
> > So stop calling this quantity weight if you so choose. Just don't
> > insist that because somebody did call it weight that it must be the
> > force due to gravity, so it would be redundant to specify that.

>
> I'm not sure if this an attack on what I wrote or what half-wit wrote.
> In the context of the preceding "discussion" the understanding was of
> the force due to gravity. However, half-wit appeared to be confusing
> this force with mass during earlier discussions, hence my clarification.
> The definitions that you trotted out appeared to agree with what I was
> saying, yet your threading of your post and the lack of direction of
> your aggressive style make me unsure that that was what you had
> intended.
>
> > When people talk about the "weight" of a bycycle or its components, it
> > is almost always mass and not the force due to gravity.

>
> Except when half-wit talked about it earlier where he was referring to
> the force due to gravity.


No--he originally talked about "heaviness"--a word whose ambiguities
have more to do with vagueness, in contract to "weight" where we often
run into individually clearer, yet separate and distinct different
meanings.

I didn't check this, but have a vague recollection of half_pint
agreeing with your characterization of the quantity under
consideration as force due to gravity.

If you are running them off the same cliff, it doesn't really matter
much whether you measure the mass of both bikes, or the force each of
them exerts due to gravity at that particular cliff. But the
measurement you are likely to have, or to make, is mass, not force.

The units used weren't much help either. Many people fail to properly
identify pounds force, to distinguish them from normal pounds as units
of mass.

> Please be more careful in future to follow threads properly and to post
> in appropriate places. ;-)
>
> Jon


I posted it right where I wanted to post it. Your redundancy comments
are what I was specifically taking issue with.

Gene Nygaard
 
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 19:11:23 -0000, "half_pint"
<[email protected]> wrote:

<brakes>
>
>Some of this low wear may be due to the way I ride, I basically avoid
>having to brake, ie I time my approach to traffic lights, and basically
>ignore
>pesestrian crossings.


****wit.

>I also take to the pavement if the all else fails.



****wit.

Tim
 
Gene Nygaard [email protected] opined the following...
> Fools who don't understand that pounds force exist are damn near as
> dumb as the idiots who insist pounds are never units of mass.


"pounds force"? You a merkin by any chance? Besides, I don't recalling
reading anyone here claiming that pounds are not a unit of mass (Not an
SI one, but still mass). The problem was with regard to the use of
"weight" to describe mass and "weight" to desribe the force of gravity
due to mass.

Have you read the thread? Do you understand what the argument is? Or did
you just grep the contents of a news server and then lauch off into your
personal crusage?

Jon
 
"Gene Nygaard" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Richard <[email protected]> wrote in message

news:<[email protected]>...
> > Gene Nygaard wrote:
> >
> > > Weight is a force when people talk about "draw weight" of a bow--but
> > > that force has nothing to do with gravity.

> >
> > IBTD. A bow's "draw-weight" is the force on the archer's fingertips,
> > usually specified at a particular draw length - and is expressed in
> > units of mass that would provide that "draw-weight" force due to

gravity.
> >
> > R.

>
> Fools who don't understand that pounds force exist are damn near as
> dumb as the idiots who insist pounds are never units of mass.
>
> The proper SI units for draw weight are newtons.
>
> That "draw weight" does not depend on the local acceleration of
> gravity. The units you use might depend on some arbitrary "standard"
> acceleration of gravity--note that this is not the local acceleration
> of gravity--but that doesn't mean that "draw weight" itself has
> anything to do with gravity. Your bow will have the same "draw
> weight" (in any of the units ever used for this purpose) on Mars that
> it has on Earth--but it would take more mass there to exert the same
> force due to gravity.
>
> Gene Nygaard


This is a rather silly matter as we all "know" what weight is.
It does depend to a certain extent upon the definition of weight you use
and how you interpretate that definition.
Now in my dictionary it is defined as the "force with which a body is
attracted
to earth" if I take that to mean the force exerted if the body *were* on the
earths surface ( a reasonable assumption in my opinion ) then all mass
would have the same weight wherever it was.

Your use of Mars is a bit ambigious as it is unclear if you mean the Earths
or Mar's gravity, I assume you means Mar's gravity but as I said it is
unclear.


For instance on this page
http://www.edhelper.com/ReadingComprehension_27_21.html

==================================================
Suppose you weigh 100 pounds here on Earth. Would you like to know
what you would weigh in different locations in space?
Just look at this list.
Earth - 100 lbs
Moon - 17 lbs
Mercury - 38 lbs
Jupiter - 236 lbs
===================================================


Now from that you could conclude that the Earth gravity is stronger as far
out as Jupiter!!!!!!!


Some other definitions I found:-

"The force with which a body is attracted to Earth or another celestial
body,
equal to the product of the object's mass and the acceleration of gravity."

Yes but which body? I am currently attracted to everybody in the Universe
so I have billions of different weights!!!!!! (and that includes every
electron,
atom and proton in the Universe!!)

"the force exerted on the mass of a body by a gravitational field"

Yes but which gravitationial field?


Here is another definition which statisfied my constraint that it is the
force
exerted by the gravitational field of the Earth at the surface.

"Weight (symbolized w) is a quantity representing the force exerted on a
particle
or object by an acceleration field, particularly the gravitational field of
the Earth
at the surface"

So by that definition the draw-weight is the same wherever you are.



http://sundials.org/about/humpty.htm
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it
means just
what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

So please don't criticise people when they do not use *your* definition of
gravity - (he said with great gravity.).