What do these bike terms mean? Total cycling novice.

Hi,

I am wondering if anyone can enlighten me to what the following things are. Also if you have any
information about performance or reliability - let me know

******************************************
1:An "Alloy cross rigid" Frame.

2:Rigid Cromo Fork

3:Shimano Tiagra with Rapid Fire - Gears

4:Alloy 52/42/30x175mm Chain

5:Alloy 'V' type Brakes

6:700c alloy double wall rims with quick release front & rear hub - Wheels

7:Adjustable 'comfort' stem.
******************************************

Thanks,

Gary.

 

>1:An "Alloy cross rigid" Frame.
Alloy means that the bike's frame is made of aluminium alloy. i.e. not steel or carbon fibre. Rigid
means no suspension. Not sure about "cross". Could mean that the frame is designed for cyclocross
racing or that it has some gimicky design feature.

> 2:Rigid Cromo Fork
cromoly is a type of steel alloy used in most steel bikes. Rigid means that it does not have
suspension. The fork is the two-pronged bit of metal that the front wheel conects two. The prongs
join at the top where they are connected to a tube which the handlebars are attached via the stem.

> 3:Shimano Tiagra with Rapid Fire - Gears
Shimano make a range of groupsets (groupset refers to the components of the bike- e.g. front and
rear gear mechanisms, hubs, chain, cogs (sprockets), wheel rims, etc...). The more you pay the
lighter and suposedly better the groupset will be. See Shimano's web page to learn more about the
Tiagra groupset and how it compares with others which they manufacture. Also see Campagnolo which is
the other major component manufacturer. Shimano is Japanese and makes excelent components. Campag is
Italian and has been around for longer. Both are equally good. Don't ask which is better because
you'll just start a flame war. Do a google groups search to see what has happened in the past when
such questions have been asked.

Rapid fire is a system for changing gears. Go to a bike shop and try different systems by Campag and
Shimano to see which you prefer.

> 4:Alloy 52/42/30x175mm Chain
I assume you mean "chain ring". The chain rings are the large "cogs" attached to the cranks (the
straight bits of metal to which rotate around the bottom bracket and to which the pedals are fixed).
Most bikes have either two or three chainrings. The setup you describe has three. The numbers refer
to the numbers of teeth on the large, medium and small chainrings. The 175mm refers to the distance
between the center of the pedal axel and the center of the bottom bracket axel (the fixed bearing
around which the cranks rotate). Cranks usual come in lengths between 170 and
175mm. Track bikes usually are 165mm. Some racing bikes for large riders have up to 180mm
long cranks.

> 5:Alloy 'V' type Brakes
This is a brake design that acts on the wheel rim. Other varients are cantelver. It would be easiest
to see difference if you went to a bike shop and saw the designs at work. Mountain bikes are
increasingly coming fitted with disk brakes- which work like motorcycle brakes.

> 6:700c alloy double wall rims with quick release front & rear hub - Wheels
700c refers to the wheel diameter. 700c is standard for a road bike. Mountain bike wheels are
slightly smaller at 650c. Quick release means that the axel is hollow and has a simple mechanism
skewered through it to allow the wheel to be removed rapidly without tools. That's very useful if
you puncture or want to pack the bike in the boot, but it also means that the wheels can be easily
stolen if you leave the bike locked to a railing

> 7:Adjustable 'comfort' stem.
> ******************************************
The stem is the bit of metal the links the handlebars to the forks. If it's adjustable, that
probably means that the angle can be changed to allow control over the height of the handlebars.

Performance and reliability are dependant on the exact components we're talking about. e.g. the
bottom end Shimano road groupset - Sora - is made with a lot of plastic, is heavy, and will wear
relatively soon. Their top end road groupset - Dura Ace - is made mostly of metal and carbon fibre
with a lot "exotic" metals like titanium. A complete Dura Ace groupset will set you back over £1000.
Campagnolo provide better quality at the same price (in my opinion).

If you want to learn more about various aspects of cycling, take a look at our club web page-
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~cycling

There are many links there which you will find useful.

Rob

 

Ryan Cousineau wrote:

> Thanks for the advice; I do indeed surf Usenet with a trusty iMac named Indigo Montoya, after my
> favourite character in S. Morgenstern's (NOT W. Goldman's!) best novel.

You've read other works of his? Are they any good?

> I use OS9, but my primary mail client is...mutt, on a Sun box at SFU. I like the convenience of
> telnetting in to get my mail from anywhere without the agony that is the SFU web client (though
> the client is convenient for other stuff.
>
> I think SFU offers an IMAP option; maybe I should join the 21st century.

If you're telnetting to fraser, the *only* option is IMAP. That's why mutt is the default now, since
I gather pine and elm don't support IMAP.

> I also should stop complaining about spam, since SFU provides automatic subject-line
> spam-flagging.

Yeah, the new spamassassin feature is really nice. They extra headers it adds (e.g. X-Spam-Level)
are even nicer than the subject line flagging. I particularly like the X-Spam-Report on flagged
messages, which tell you how the score was generated. They even account for things like what
news/mailreader was used to send the message. For example, using MS-Outlook increases the spam
score, whereas Emacs Gnus decreases it . . .

--
Benjamin Lewis

Dinosaurs aren't extinct. They've just learned to hide in the trees.

 

In article <[email protected]>, "Matt O'Toole"
<[email protected]> wrote:

> "Tim McNamara" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...

> > If you're running OS X, I can vouch for Mailfilter X which kills better than 95% of the 30-40
> > spam messages I get a day. And occasionally a good one- oops. You have to fix the filtering
> > rules sometimes. I find that about 10 rules kill most of the spam I get (mainly referring to
> > multipart text/html mails, a few TLDs like .kr, and e-mails which don't have my address in the
> > To: or CC: headers)

> 30-40? I get at least a couple hundred -- after filtering. I still don't see what the big deal is,
> picking the ones you want from the inbox, moving them to another folder to read them, and trashing
> the rest. Even when the mail has built up after being away for a week, it still doesn't take more
> than a minute or two.

Yup, this is true- but the porn spams really piss off my wife, so I filter to kill those mainly. A
couple hundred spams a day? Yikes.

> FWIW, the new Bayesian filters in the latest Mozilla builds work really well, but I don't use
> Mozilla for mail and news because I hate the newsreader.

Agreed on the Mozilla newsreader. Yuck.

Mac OS X 10.2.x's built in filtering is Bayesian, I believe. SpamSieve provides Bayesian filtering
for various Mac OS X mail clients (but not OS X's Mail for 10.1.5 or earlier, apparently):

http://c-command.com/spamsieve/index.shtml

MailFilter X uses the Unix mailfilter application whch uses regular expressions to filter on
any header:

http://e-scribe.com/osx/mailfilter/

 

[email protected] wrote in message

> . . . It's what you write, how defensible it is, and how well you back it up with evidence and
> simple tests through which the reader can verify what you write.

If that's the case, then what difference does it make what name is in a .sig? Let the content speak
for itself.

Will "John Doe" make you feel better?

> Use your name and join civility. (don't give out your e-mail address)

Uncivilly yours,

BikeRacer2000