Wheel Mods

[sogood]

This is all pretty amazing, I am thoroghly impressed. Once again, we have proof without recourse that human can and do get smarter and more creative through cycling!

 

[bobbyOCR]

These are all some excellent ideas. Personally I just ide while its raining so I don't have to carry around 750g of water. It saves me so much time.

Another strategy I like to use is to spin the wheels (or get someone else to) while you file the tread off. All that weight at the outside slows you down too much, why keep it there! I also only buy used aluminium rims so there isn't as much materiail on the brake surface. Who cares if they blow out, the loss of weigh surely makes me go faster.

I also use duct tape as bar-ends and top cap, 165mm cranks cause they are lighter, use a very short chain, nylon bolts for everything, paint-stripped my frame (who cares how it looks if its lighter), no bar-tape (who needs it if you have gloves) and of course no computer. You know you are going fast without all that weight.

 

[bobbyOCR]

1) Rotational mass is reduced to almost nothing (especially if the propellor is made of carbon, since the forces subjected to it are much less when pushing air compared to supporting one's body weight)

n

You forgot to mention. Because its carbon, its obviously faster.

 

[vadiver]

These are all some excellent ideas. Personally I just ide while its raining so I don't have to carry around 750g of water. It saves me so much time.

Another strategy I like to use is to spin the wheels (or get someone else to) while you file the tread off. All that weight at the outside slows you down too much, why keep it there! I also only buy used aluminium rims so there isn't as much materiail on the brake surface. Who cares if they blow out, the loss of weigh surely makes me go faster.

I also use duct tape as bar-ends and top cap, 165mm cranks cause they are lighter, use a very short chain, nylon bolts for everything, paint-stripped my frame (who cares how it looks if its lighter), no bar-tape (who needs it if you have gloves) and of course no computer. You know you are going fast without all that weight.

You wear gloves? That is a waste right there.

 

[mikesbytes]

Take your 10 speed cassette and remove every second sprocket

 

[bobbyOCR]

Take your 10 speed cassette and remove every second sprocket

Yes but 10 speed is so much faster than any other speed.

Also. I don't wear gloves, I just glue the palm of a glove to my hand every time I ride.

 

[bigpedaler]

yo, you have to promise to keep this a secret....

i'm working with this tech-geek genius (he works for hershey bars) who's doing up a new metal treatment to make 20-gauge spokes stiff & strong enough to be useable. they'll work w/ carbon/ti eyelets.

 

[bobbyOCR]

yo, you have to promise to keep this a secret....

i'm working with this tech-geek genius (he works for hershey bars) who's doing up a new metal treatment to make 20-gauge spokes stiff & strong enough to be useable. they'll work w/ carbon/ti eyelets.

can you eat them?

 

[sogood]

I also only buy used aluminium rims so there isn't as much materiail on the brake surface. Who cares if they blow out, the loss of weigh surely makes me go faster.

Gees, you use brakes? Are you out of your mind? That things slows you down big time! Just accelerate, and only decelerate if you've reached the finish line. And I usually just jam my foot against the front tyre.

 

[Bro Deal]

Gees, you use brakes? Are you out of your mind? That things slows you down big time! Just accelerate, and only decelerate if you've reached the finish line. And I usually just jam my foot against the front tyre.

You use tires? I save around 500 grams by putting a couple of wraps of duct tape around the the bare rims. I'm rolling on the equivalent of 2000 psi tires. You know the rolling resistance has got to be low with that setup.

 

[CoppiRidesOn]

Ah, da hell with these ideas...

 

[Retro Grouch]

I friend of mine has been buying low density, highly oxygenated water for the last 2 years from a chemist in Mexico. A full 750ml bottle weighs only 410g, which is approx 55% the weight of regular water.

Actually, I read some place that some pro racer used to have somebody hand him up a lead shot filled water bottle just prior to the descent of certain mountain stages. Then he'd drop it when he reached the bottom.

 

[alienator]

Ah, da hell with these ideas...

There goes the neighborhood. You just had to throw out a pick of a blinged up Hardly Davidson.

Real motorcycles look like this.

 

[alienator]

Actually, I read some place that some pro racer used to have somebody hand him up a lead shot filled water bottle just prior to the descent of certain mountain stages. Then he'd drop it when he reached the bottom.

Very crafty, dumping all the lead shot out at the bottom of the descent so that your competitors have to tip toe through them......

 

[CoppiRidesOn]

There goes the neighborhood. You just had to throw out a pick of a blinged up Hardly Davidson.

Real motorcycles look like this.

Ok,Ok < bowing to the Alienator >...you are man!!! hehehehe

 

[daveryanwyoming]

Actually, I read some place that some pro racer used to have somebody hand him up a lead shot filled water bottle just prior to the descent of certain mountain stages. Then he'd drop it when he reached the bottom.

It was Jean Robic in the 1953 TDF. He was in yellow, but was a pretty slow descender so he had molten lead poured into his aluminum water bottle and handed up at the top of the passes. Here's the story:

Stage 11 with the Tourmalet, Aspin and Peyresourde would be a profound test for the riders. Robic was always an audacious rider. He escaped on the first climb, the Tourmalet, and stayed away the rest of the stage. He never got very far ahead of his chasers and at the end Bobet was able to close within 1 minute, 27 seconds of him. But "Old Leatherhead" was in Yellow again. Schaer showed that he was a complete rider by finishing fourth.

Here was the new General Classification:

1. Jean Robic 2. Fritz Schaer @ 18 seconds 3. Gilbert Bauvin @ 1 minute 50 seconds 4. Giancarlo Astrua @ 7 minutes 12 seconds 5. Louison Bobet @ 9 minutes 12 seconds Let's pause a moment. Robic has another couple of interesting stories. There are so many of them. Remember, he wasn't riding for the French National Team in the 1953 Tour. He was riding for a regional French team, France-West. The manager of the team, Léon Le Calvez (who had ridden on the great French Tour teams of the 1930's), knew he had a good rider in Robic, but Robic could not get down the hills quickly. He could make great time on the climbs and then lose it on the other side. It wasn't a matter of being a skilled descender. He was very small, only 5 feet tall. Like many of the great climbers, he just didn't have the mass to get down fast.

Le Calvez had a plan. The evening before the first climbs in stage 9 he had molten lead poured into a water bottle—water bottles were aluminum at that time. At the top of the climb it would be secretly passed to Robic who would then have an extra 9 kilograms of mass to aid in his descent. It had to be done secretly because handing up food and water could only be done at the designated feed zones. The ruse (effectively doubling the weight of his bike) probably helped Robic on the descent of the Tourmalet. He was able to get down the mountain fast enough to stay away and don the Yellow Jersey.

I haven't been able to track it down, but I remember years ago reading a story about Robic in which a spectator complained that Robic had thrown a bottle and hit him in the head. The answer he was given was that if that were true, the spectator would be dead because the bottle weighed 9 kilos (20 pounds).

Pretty crafty, but I'm pretty sure it was outlawed at the end of that season when the officials found out. I pulled that from this great link to the classic Coppi years of the tour: http://bikeraceinfo.com/tdf/tdf%20history/tdfhistory1950.html

 

[vadiver]

Ah, da hell with these ideas...

Sure, I bet you use the mirrors to block people at the line too.

 

[531Aussie]

]Pretty crafty, ]

what about mechanics putting ice down the seat-tube for a bike weigh-in? Did that happen, and if so, has it stopped?

Or there's the one where they apparently put a chain seatube for the weigh-in, then obviously take it out before the stage....???

 

[hd reynolds]

Has anyone ever tried trimming off the excess thread on the presta valve stem cores on their tubes so that the MOI of their wheels will be less? There has to be a time advantage, here, because less weight on the wheels means you go faster.

I think you'll save more weight if you drill the rims in between spokes. And since the holes might be less aero, cover them with scotch magic tape (the tape is lighter than the material you've bored out of them rims.

 

[nerdag]

what about mechanics putting ice down the seat-tube for a bike weigh-in? Did that happen, and if so, has it stopped?

I would have thought that ice would make the section of the seat tube it was in cold to touch, or start melting such that it would drip through the drainange hole in the BB shell area - both of which would give it away.