would it?

Dave said:

would a flat bar road bike such as a genesis day 1, be comfortable
flying down a 6ft flight of steps?
or is this canondale badboy / gt zum territory?

Wouldn't you be better off with an out and out downhill MTB or a jump
bike doing that stuff?

Chris
--
Chris Eilbeck

"Dave" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

would a flat bar road bike such as a genesis day 1, be comfortable
flying down a 6ft flight of steps?
or is this canondale badboy / gt zum territory?

Define confortable. I'd say it wouldn't be comfortable, and something with
lots of bounce at both ends would be required for that. OTOH if your
question is actually 'will the bike stand up to it', then the answer is 'it
depends'. How steep are the steps? How far is the drop for each step? I'd be
distinctly unhappy on anything with skinny tyres for anything but something
quite shallow. And I'd be using skinny tyres for the rest of the ride, so on
the whole the answer is probably 'walk it down'.

cheers,
clive

Chris Eilbeck said:

Dave said:

would a flat bar road bike such as a genesis day 1, be comfortable
flying down a 6ft flight of steps?
or is this canondale badboy / gt zum territory?Wouldn't you be better off with an out and out downhill MTB or a jump

bike doing that stuff?

im trying to get an idea of how strong the different bikes are without
finding out first hand 🙂 i plan to get a bike for getting to work and
about town which includes some subway steps and bits n pieces like that

Dave said:

im trying to get an idea of how strong the different bikes are
without finding out first hand 🙂 i plan to get a bike for getting
to work and about town which includes some subway steps and bits n
pieces like that

If I were you, I'd buy something light and fast then carry the bike up
and down the steps. If you get something strong that'll take the
abuse, it won't be very good on the road.

Chris
--
Chris Eilbeck

Chris Eilbeck said:

Dave said:

im trying to get an idea of how strong the different bikes are
without finding out first hand 🙂 i plan to get a bike for getting
to work and about town which includes some subway steps and bits n
pieces like thatIf I were you, I'd buy something light and fast then carry the bike up

and down the steps. If you get something strong that'll take the
abuse, it won't be very good on the road.

I think your right, im coming from a gt rts3 with road tires that has
taken everything including a few wipeouts with a smile, and the main
reason for getting the new bike is getting to work. thanks

Dave said:

would a flat bar road bike such as a genesis day 1, be comfortable
flying down a 6ft flight of steps?
or is this canondale badboy / gt zum territory?

The flying will be fine. I'd worry about the landing though!
--
---
Marten Gerritsen

INFOapestaartjeM-GINEERINGpuntNL
www.m-gineering.nl

In article <[email hidden]>, Dave
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

would a flat bar road bike such as a genesis day 1, be comfortable
flying down a 6ft flight of steps?
or is this canondale badboy / gt zum territory?

I used to happily ride down some quite steep steps on my old tourer
quite regularly, albeit at moderate speed, and it never showed any signs
of resentment. I don't think I'd be so happy doing it on 25mm tyres and
alloy forks though.

Chris Eilbeck said:

"Dave" <[email hidden]> writes:
I'd buy something light and fast then carry the bike up
and down the steps. If you get something strong that'll take the
abuse, it won't be very good on the road.

Yes because if you've got to go down subway steps, don't you have to
carry the bike up the other side? (or at least on the way back)

peter

Dave said:

would a flat bar road bike such as a genesis day 1, be comfortable
flying down a 6ft flight of steps?
or is this canondale badboy / gt zum territory?

I don't think *amy* bike, including a top end specialist descent
monster, would be /comfortable/ going down 6' of steps.

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 hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

In article <[email hidden]>, Peter Clinch
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Dave said:

would a flat bar road bike such as a genesis day 1, be comfortable
flying down a 6ft flight of steps?
or is this canondale badboy / gt zum territory?

I don't think *amy* bike, including a top end specialist descent
monster, would be /comfortable/ going down 6' of steps.

How do you tell if a bike is comfortable? You can't ask it (or at least
you shouldn't expect a reply).

Luka wrote on 28/01/2007 16:13 +0100:

Quoted message said:

Deffinitly,
Using a bike to ride it over stairs etc. isn't a good thing. As chris
said. Buy something light and fast. It is better to walk those 5
stairs than torture yourself to ride on flar with a heavy bike...

Any self respecting urban biker would jump the steps to miss them
completely and then land it gently as a feather at the bottom before
riding away ;-)

--
Tony

"...has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least
wildly inaccurate..."
Douglas Adams; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

On 28/01/2007 16:59, Tony Raven said,

Quoted message said:

Any self respecting urban biker would jump the steps to miss them
completely and then land it gently as a feather at the bottom before
riding away ;-)

Whilst doing a suicide no-hander with a bar-flip thrown in for good measure.

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

Luka said:

Using a bike to ride it over stairs etc. isn't a good thing. As chris
said. Buy something light and fast. It is better to walk those 5
stairs than torture yourself to ride on flar with a heavy bike...

At Leeds Uni I frequently rode down (and, less frequently, up) the steps
running from the student union, past Boyle library and down to the awful
lecture theatre block.

The faster you go, the smoother it is!

Love from Rich x

in message <[email hidden]>, Dave

(') said:

would a flat bar road bike such as a genesis day 1, be comfortable
flying down a 6ft flight of steps?
or is this canondale badboy / gt zum territory?

It depends a bit how you ride. Different riders riding the same bit of
surface will do different amounts of damage to the bike. But going down a
flight of steps isn't that much different from going over a cattle grid,
and no-one thinks twice about going over a cattle grid. On a roadbike I
would suggest taking it smoothly, out of the saddle, pedals at
quarter-to-three, arms and legs both bent and not tensed. Do NOT try to
jump off the top and land it at the bottom (although someone very good at
landing jumps could probably do that without harm on a road bike).

Make sure your tyres are good and hard - you do not want to get pinch
flats!

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Error 1109: There is no message for this error

in message <[email hidden]>, Peter Clinch

(') said:

Dave said:

would a flat bar road bike such as a genesis day 1, be comfortable
flying down a 6ft flight of steps?
or is this canondale badboy / gt zum territory?

I don't think *amy* bike, including a top end specialist descent
monster, would be /comfortable/ going down 6' of steps.

Nonsense. Any cross-country mountain bike goes over far more difficult
features than that every time it's properly used, without discomfort to
bike or rider. The question is is it reasonable on a road bike, and my
instinct is 'yes'.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; may contain traces of nuts, bolts or washers.

in message <[email hidden]>, Clive

George (') said:

"Dave" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

would a flat bar road bike such as a genesis day 1, be comfortable
flying down a 6ft flight of steps?
or is this canondale badboy / gt zum territory?

Define confortable. I'd say it wouldn't be comfortable, and something
with lots of bounce at both ends would be required for that. OTOH if your
question is actually 'will the bike stand up to it', then the answer is
'it depends'. How steep are the steps? How far is the drop for each step?
I'd be distinctly unhappy on anything with skinny tyres for anything but
something quite shallow. And I'd be using skinny tyres for the rest of
the ride, so on the whole the answer is probably 'walk it down'.

What do you do when you encounter a cattle grid?

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

'there are no solutions, only precipitates'

Dave said:

Chris Eilbeck said:

Dave said:

would a flat bar road bike such as a genesis day 1, be comfortable
flying down a 6ft flight of steps?
or is this canondale badboy / gt zum territory?Wouldn't you be better off with an out and out downhill MTB or a jump

bike doing that stuff?

im trying to get an idea of how strong the different bikes are without
finding out first hand 🙂 i plan to get a bike for getting to work and
about town which includes some subway steps and bits n pieces like that

Would these subway steps be part of a cyclepath? Would it be legal to
ride down them?

in message <[email hidden]>, Clive

George (') said:

"Simon Brooke" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>>
>>> would a flat bar road bike such as a genesis day 1, be comfortable
>>> flying down a 6ft flight of steps?
>>> or is this canondale badboy / gt zum territory?
>>
>> Define confortable. I'd say it wouldn't be comfortable, and something
>> with lots of bounce at both ends would be required for that. OTOH if
>> your question is actually 'will the bike stand up to it', then the
>> answer is 'it depends'. How steep are the steps? How far is the drop
>> for each step? I'd be distinctly unhappy on anything with skinny
>> tyres for anything but something quite shallow. And I'd be using
>> skinny tyres for the rest of the ride, so on the whole the answer is
>> probably 'walk it down'.
>
> What do you do when you encounter a cattle grid?

Ride over it. The lumps on a cattle grid are tiny compared to the lumps
on a proper staircase.

Ermmm... no, actually, they're not. There are cattle grids I ride over
regularly with a pitch of 150mm; a proper staircase has a pitch of about
225mm.

Giggle. I wondered if you'd try that one. Ok, on a skateboard riding
slowly, a cattle grid is as bad as a flight of steps. But let's consider
a bike with more normal sized wheels. What size step is presented by your
150mm cattle grid?

If you ride slowly enough to drop the full gap while riding a 700ish
wheeled bike, it's about 10mm. Maybe double because the tyres will pinch
more at the points? The faster you ride it, the better - my calculations
gave a step of about 2.5 millimetres at 15mph. But 10mm seems like a
suitable overestimate. That's 10J to absorb for each bar for a 100kg
rider.

If we've got little wee steps of 100mm, that's already 10 times the
energy which needs to be absorbed. 150mm or 200mm is going to be even
worse. I think it's fair to say an order of magnitude or more means that
the lumps on a cattle grid _are_ tiny compared to the lumps on a proper
staircase.

Quoted message said:

It does depend on how steep the flight is, of course, but very
shallow flights (= bigger pitch) are generally less intimidating to ride
down, not more.

That's pretty obvious. It's not the horizontal pitch (ie frequency of
bump) which is relevant here, it's the vertical pitch (ie magnitude of
bump).

I'm completely unconvinced. I don't think the vertical pitch is relevant at
all at the sorts of speed we're talking about - the wheel is going to take
a trajectory from step edge to step edge, it's not going to roll carefully
down one step and then carefully down the next. The problem will be to get
it to touch the top few steps at all (and that obviously limits the speed
at which you can do it).

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I've certainly
ridden it at speed over some pretty shocking surfaces.

Like cattle grids. But the sizes of the impacts are tiny compared to
steps.

I really, really disagree. I agree that the impacts on cattle grids are
tiny, but I think the impacts on the step edges are tiny, too.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The issue
is the weight of the rider. And a good rider uses his arms and legs to
suspend his weight.

Yup. And a 6 ft drop requires a hell of a lot of arms and legs to absorb
that.

Yes, but you're not landing a six foot jump. You're going down an inclined
plane which just happens to have short gaps in it. The bike is going to
pretty much float over those gaps, provided the rider is sufficiently
limber.

Quoted message said:

If you presented a 6ft flight of steps to a road bike manufacturer and
said "Can you warranty my bike for riding down that daily", they'd laugh
at you.

Sure. And equally certainly, they'd say the same about the flight of steps.
But the flight of steps and the six foot jump are not the same thing at
all.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

For office use only. Please do not write or type below this line.

"Simon Brooke" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I'm completely unconvinced. I don't think the vertical pitch is relevant
at
all at the sorts of speed we're talking about - the wheel is going to take
a trajectory from step edge to step edge, it's not going to roll carefully
down one step and then carefully down the next. The problem will be to get
it to touch the top few steps at all (and that obviously limits the speed
at which you can do it).

What happens when you get to the bottom? If you've managed to take a
trajectory such that you're just tapping the corners of the steps, you've
still got a lot of energy to lose at some point - and that's not going to go
away in braking, since you're almost flying. (If it helps, I'm still not
talking about shallow staircases - I agree they would be fine).

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The issue
is the weight of the rider. And a good rider uses his arms and legs to
suspend his weight.

Yup. And a 6 ft drop requires a hell of a lot of arms and legs to absorb
that.

Yes, but you're not landing a six foot jump. You're going down an inclined
plane which just happens to have short gaps in it. The bike is going to
pretty much float over those gaps, provided the rider is sufficiently
limber.

You're talking about a much shallower staircase than I am. The sort of thing
I'm thinking of, which is the sort of thing the OP is considering riding,
would be an inclined plane with big gaps in it.

So, as above - you've still got the same energy to dissipate as for a 6ft
jump without the steps if you're not getting rid of it on the steps
themselves.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

If you presented a 6ft flight of steps to a road bike manufacturer and
said "Can you warranty my bike for riding down that daily", they'd laugh
at you.

Sure. And equally certainly, they'd say the same about the flight of
steps.

(scratches head) Erm, that makes no sense at all.

cheers,
clive