Hello, New here just wanted to say hi
WesEssereetup
Ahoy! hi everyone
New here, hope im made welcome :)
--
WesEssereetup
lime...@gmail.com
New man in the group needs to post pictures of his bike, to get
approval rating.
OK, just kidding. Welcome aboard.
Lewis
*****
Paul O
> Ahoy! hi everyone
>
> New here, hope im made welcome :)
>
>
>
>
>
chain lubrication
threadless head sets
bicycle shorts
bar end shifters
mirrors
compact frames
halogen lighting systems
ceramic bearings
aluminum bicycle frames
bicycle lanes
and, of course, bicycle helmets
Best of luck....
--
Paul D Oosterhout
I work for SAIC (but I don't speak for SAIC)
Jobst Brandt
>> Ahoy! hi everyone
>> New here, hope I'm made welcome :)
> Whether or not you are made welcome depends on your opinions about:
> chain lubrication
> threadless head sets
> bicycle shorts
> bar end shifters
> mirrors
> compact frames
> halogen lighting systems
> ceramic bearings
> aluminum bicycle frames
> bicycle lanes
> and, of course, bicycle helmets
> Best of luck....
It seems you have this in a cart before the horse definition. Whether
a contributor is welcome depends on how he insults other contributors,
mainly about the above subjects that are often presented dogmatically
with no reasonable proof. "Wreck.bike.tech" is best not perceived as
a collection of religious tenets. That's how writers appear to become
unwelcome.
Jobst Brandt
Paul O
Joy Beeson
wrote:
> Sorry Jobst, I forgot to add a smiley emoticons at the end of my post.
smileys
don't
help
--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
SMS
> Whether or not you are made welcome depends on your opinions about:
> chain lubrication
> threadless head sets
> bicycle shorts
> bar end shifters
> mirrors
> compact frames
> halogen lighting systems
> ceramic bearings
> aluminum bicycle frames
> bicycle lanes
>
> and, of course, bicycle helmets
I can save him some time:
Chain lubrication: Use chainsaw oil or motorcycle foaming chain lube.
Avoid wax. Clean your chain with mineral spirits or kerosene, NEVER with
a water based cleaner.
Threadless head sets: Good in theory, but rarely are the steer tubes
left uncut so the bars can be positioned at the proper level, requiring
messy kludges to fix the height problem.
Bicycle shorts: MUSA riding shorts.
("http://www.rivbike.com/products/show/musa-riding-shorts/22-995").
Bar end shifters: Bad. Use brifters.
Mirrors: Good. Too bad the Rhode Gear bar mirror is no longer available,
but there's a decent one sold by Rivendell.
Compact frames: Extremely bad. Avoid at all costs.
Halogen lighting systems: Good, but some of the newer Cree LED bicycle
lights are probably a better choice, especially for use in the daytime
with their strobe function. For a commute bicycle also consider a dynamo
hub and headlight as an addition to a brighter, safer, battery powered
light.
Ceramic bearings: Okay, but pointless.
Aluminum bicycle frames: Not great, but most people don't want to pay
the price premium for better quality steel or titanium frame. On lower
end bicycles you have no real choice. Never buy a touring bicycle with
an aluminum frame.
Bicycle lanes: Usually good, if they are part of the same road, and not
separated by a barrier or swale.
Bicycle helmets: Over-hyped as a safety device, but definitely provide
good protection in relatively rare head impact crashes.
Tom Sherman °_°
> Paul O wrote:
>
>> Whether or not you are made welcome depends on your opinions about:
>
>> chain lubrication
>> threadless head sets
>> bicycle shorts
>> bar end shifters
>> mirrors
>> compact frames
>> halogen lighting systems
>> ceramic bearings
>> aluminum bicycle frames
>> bicycle lanes
>>
>> and, of course, bicycle helmets
>
> I can save him some time:
>
> Chain lubrication: Use chainsaw oil or motorcycle foaming chain lube.
> Avoid wax. Clean your chain with mineral spirits or kerosene, NEVER with
> a water based cleaner.
>
> Threadless head sets: Good in theory, but rarely are the steer tubes
> left uncut so the bars can be positioned at the proper level, requiring
> messy kludges to fix the height problem.
>
Threadless is better in every other way.
> Bicycle shorts: MUSA riding shorts.
> ("http://www.rivbike.com/products/show/musa-riding-shorts/22-995").
>
Or many other alternatives. You want a tight fit at the bottom to
prevent insect intrusion.
> Bar end shifters: Bad. Use brifters.
>
Brifters bad. Simple shifters with optional friction mode good.
> Mirrors: Good. Too bad the Rhode Gear bar mirror is no longer available,
> but there's a decent one sold by Rivendell.
>
The Mountain Mirrycle is good for the price:
<http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=vzy&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=Mountain%20bicycle%20mirror&aql=&oq=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wf>.
> Compact frames: Extremely bad. Avoid at all costs.
>
SMS gets one right. Compact frames are a visually heinous abomination.
> Halogen lighting systems: Good, but some of the newer Cree LED bicycle
> lights are probably a better choice, especially for use in the daytime
> with their strobe function. For a commute bicycle also consider a dynamo
> hub and headlight as an addition to a brighter, safer, battery powered
> light.
>
The latest generation of dynamo hub powered LED are suitable for all but
faired 'bents on descents.
> Ceramic bearings: Okay, but pointless.
>
Two right.
> Aluminum bicycle frames: Not great, but most people don't want to pay
> the price premium for better quality steel or titanium frame. On lower
> end bicycles you have no real choice. Never buy a touring bicycle with
> an aluminum frame.
>
Aluminium alloy frames are fine if properly designed for their intended
use. Unless you use thick-wall, plain carbon steel tubing, steel frames
are really not field weldable.
> Bicycle lanes: Usually good, if they are part of the same road, and not
> separated by a barrier or swale.
>
Bicycle lanes are for motorists who want cyclists our of the proper roadway.
> Bicycle helmets: Over-hyped as a safety device, but definitely provide
> good protection in relatively rare head impact crashes.
Population studies show helmets do not protect against serious head
injury or death. Wear one for bump and scrape protection, or to impress
the jury as a responsible cyclist if a motorist hits you.
--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
SMS
> Population studies show helmets do not protect against serious head
> injury or death.
Population studies are notoriously bad at preventing concussions when
your head hits the pavement.
Tom Sherman °_°
As is a thin, highly ventilated piece of expanded polystyrene.
Jobst Brandt
Oops, we've run into religion, the belief in something that requires
faith and cannot be directly proven. How about introducing some
evidence of the value of bicycle helmets rather than claiming that
they are protection as claimed.
Jobst Brandt
Jobst Brandt
>>> Population studies show helmets do not protect against serious
>>> head injury or death.
>> Population studies are notoriously bad at preventing concussions
>> when your head hits the pavement.
> As is a thin, highly ventilated piece of expanded polystyrene.
Tom, you are an atheist in this subject. Don't try to confuse us with
facts, our minds are made up! If "population studies are notoriously
bad" then helmets must be notoriously good. That's all the proof
needed.
Jobst Brandt
Bill Sornson
> Oops, we've run into religion, the belief in something that requires
> faith and cannot be directly proven.
This belongs in a global warming thread.
HTH!
Jed Davis
> Steven Scharf wrote:
>> [someone else wrote:]
My reading of that post was that, if you print out a population study
and then affix the hardcopy to your head, it will not be very good
protection against head injury. While I'd hesitate at "notoriously",
since the practice would have to be common for its shortcomings to be
well known, it sounds plausible that it would not work well.
--
_ _ _
/| _| /| _| /| _|
/| | < | | < | |
/| L \| L \| L
Simon Lewis
How about this Einstein.
A small child falls sidewise and cracks the side of her head on the
sharp angle of the curb.
Q: would there be more damage to her skull with out without a protective
shell encasing her soft boned, minors skull?
Difficult I know. But we'll let you join the dots ...
SMS
Oh please, the links to a plethora of helmet studies have been posted
here for years. Those against helmet use simply ignore them, and keep
going back to population studies because it's the only thing that
"proves" what isn't so.
You're right, it is a religion. A religion of those that believe in
population studies rather than in actual evidence. It's hopeless. They
will have an excuse to dismiss every study, no matter how thorough and
statistically sound.
Why can't they just state the truth, 'I don't wear a helmet, the chances
of me being in an accident where the helmet would prevent injury or
death are small, and I'm willing to take that risk. But I do understand
that were I to crash and hit my head, I'd be better off wearing a helmet.'
SMS
<snip>
> A small child falls sidewise and cracks the side of her head on the
> sharp angle of the curb.
>
> Q: would there be more damage to her skull with out without a protective
> shell encasing her soft boned, minors skull?
>
> Difficult I know. But we'll let you join the dots ...
No one denies that helmets provide protection in a head impact crash.
The sole argument of the AHZs is their claim that when MHLs were passed
in various places that the injury and death rates did not decline. In
their minds, that claim (not true by the way) _proves_ that helmets do
not provide any protection.
They are wrong in several ways. First of all, injury and death rates
_did_ decline. When you point that out they will claim that the reason
was a reduction in cycling, so the rate/person did not change, even
though the methodology they use to support their claim of a reduction in
cycling is severely flawed. Second, there are numerous scientific
studies, often quoted here, that show that helmets in fact are key in
preventing injuries in head impact crashes. When you point those out to
them, they _always_ have an excuse. The favorite excuse is that it was
not a double-blind study, i.e. they didn't send cyclists out with and
without helmets, instructing them how to crash and hit their heads, and
then evaluate the differences in injuries and deaths between the two groups.
They are like those that claim that global warming is a hoax. First they
denied the earth was warming. When they couldn't deny that anymore they
claimed it was not caused by CO2 emissions. When they couldn't claim
that anymore they claimed that it was not man-made C02 emissions. When
they couldn't claim that any more they claimed that the increases didn't
matter. When they couldn't claim that anymore they said that we could
live with the changes and that it would be too expensive and
inconvenient to make the necessary changes to reduce emissions.
Frank Krygowski
>
>
> How about this Einstein.
Speaking of Einstein: He rode his bicycle without wearing head
protection.
http://z.about.com/d/bicycling/1/0/J/7/-/-/albert_einstein.jpg
> A small child falls sidewise and cracks the side of her head on the
> sharp angle of the curb.
>
> Q: would there be more damage to her skull with out without a protective
> shell encasing her soft boned, minors skull?
>
> Difficult I know. But we'll let you join the dots ...
In many people's imagination, children very frequently take falls in
which they badly strike their heads, and only the children wearing
helmets survive.
In real life, data on serious head injuries shows such falls have
always been extremely rare. Kids fall, but they scrape their knees,
then continue riding.
And in real life, even after mandatory helmet laws have been passed
and enforced, causing helmet wearing rates to surge to 90+%, there
have been no detectable benefits. For example, the percentage of
bicyclists hospitalized due to head injuries has not dropped. Or head
injury rates per rider have not dropped.
So when real life connects the dots, it shows that helmets are not
needed, and are not helping.
I've given citations dozens of times. I can give them again, if
needed, but the True Believers won't read the source papers anyway.
In particular, Scharf repeatedly claims the evidence I cite does not
exist. It's the intellectual equivalent of covering one's ears and
saying "I can't hear you."
- Frank Krygowski
Frank Krygowski
>
>
> Oh please, the links to a plethora of helmet studies have been posted
> here for years. Those against helmet use simply ignore them, and keep
> going back to population studies because it's the only thing that
> "proves" what isn't so.
Here's the situation: Almost all helmet proponents refer to just one
pro-helmet study, the tiny case-control study from 1989 that claimed
that helmets prevent 85% of head injuries. They ignore that data from
the same study, using their same calculation techniques, also "proves"
that those helmets prevented roughly 75% of leg injuries. IOW, the
study was faulty; the groups being compared for calculation purposes
differed in far more ways than whether they wore helmets. Here's more
on that:
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1131.html
In imitation of that study, there have been many case-control studies
of bike helmet use. They almost all find benefit to helmet use; but
to one degree or another, they suffer from the same shortcoming.
There is no way to ensure that the only important difference between
the groups being compared is the presence or absence of a helmet.
(For example, when a suburban princess slightly dents her helmet and
the parents rush her to the ER in their SUV "just to be sure, because
our insurance will pay 100% for ER," they're likely to find nothing
wrong, and credit the helmet. But when a poor single mother's boy
gets a small knot on his head, she won't go to ER via the bus. She'll
take him there only if he's truly hurt. The difference is more the
medical cost, insurance and ease of transportation.)
In any case, all those case-control studies have claimed that if
everyone wore helmets, head injury rates of cyclists would drop
significantly. How does one check whether they really do?
One examines the population data. It's easiest if you check rates of
serious (or fatal) head injuries - per cyclist, that is - just before
and after a helmet law increases the number of helmets per cyclist,
because fewer other "confounding factors" could cause similar sudden
changes. But it doesn't matter. Studies examining data just before
and after helmet laws show the same thing as studies examining long
term data when helmet use increases gradually. In either case,
there's no benefit. Serious or fatal head injuries per remaining
cyclist do not improve. (Not that they're eve high to begin with.)
Here's an informal article on that, cited many times.
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1028.html
I can cite more technical research papers showing the same thing - but
of course, True Believers will ignore them.
So briefly: Case-control studies predict wonderful things, but
there's no way to do a proper (double-blind) case-control study of
bike helmets.
And case-control studies' wonderful predictions have always failed in
the real world.
Which should we believe? Personally, I go with the real world.
- Frank Krygowski
Frank Krygowski
> The sole argument of the AHZs...
Scharf, using deprecatory terms or acronyms to refer to your opponents
is childish. So is your repeated misstatement of your opponents
arguments. We all know the definition of a "straw man" argument.
> ... is their claim that when MHLs were passed
> in various places that the injury and death rates did not decline. In
> their minds, that claim (not true by the way) _proves_ that helmets do
> not provide any protection.
Actually, one of the best research papers on this topic examines the
hospital records of all cyclists during a time of sudden increase in
helmet use just _before_ a helmet law was passed. Absolutely no
detectable benefit was found, despite multiple analyses using
increasingly sophisticated mathematics. So it's not just failure
after the passage of a law.
And if you claim that such failures are not true, perhaps you should
explain the problems with this paper
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2024.pdf
or with the strong data sets contained here:
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1096.html
I understand not all the latter are indeed strong. But where are your
proven exceptions?
> They are wrong in several ways. First of all, injury and death rates
> _did_ decline.
Per cyclist? Significantly? Where, pray tell?
> ... the methodology they use to support their claim of a reduction in
> cycling is severely flawed.
For example, before-after counts by trained observers, corroborated by
automatic traffic counters in key locations, corroborated by phone
interviews on bicycle use and on the reason for less use? What on
earth would you suggest to improve on those?
BTW, the latest news out of Texas is the results of a study by helmet-
promoting physicians. They were hoping their ER data would show a
convincing benefit to helmet wearing, so they could continue lobbying
for an all-ages helmet law in Austin.
Here's what they found instead.
I know... Scharf will say that doesn't count.
- Frank Krygowski
Dan O
>
> Mirrors: Good. Too bad the Rhode Gear bar mirror is no longer available,
> but there's a decent one sold by Rivendell.
I've had two of those. It does work, although ISTR it wiggled around
too much, and at least the first one rattled.
Don't leave the mirror's wingnut loose when loading bike on bus rack,
or you'll loose it and the mirror.
>
> Bicycle helmets: Over-hyped as a safety device, but definitely provide
> good protection in relatively rare head impact crashes.
Straight from the FAQ, right?
Stephen Harding
> Whether or not you are made welcome depends on your opinions about:
> chain lubrication
> threadless head sets
> bicycle shorts
> bar end shifters
> mirrors
> compact frames
> halogen lighting systems
> ceramic bearings
> aluminum bicycle frames
> bicycle lanes
>
> and, of course, bicycle helmets
Kickstands! You forgot kickstands!
SMH
Stephen Harding
> Sorry Jobst, I forgot to add a smiley emoticons at the end of my post.
In the future, whenever posting to a thread that Jobst may pick
up on, ALWAYS add the smiley if humor is the intent of your statement.
Unless of course, you are fully "instrumented" with electronics to
report your respiration rate, hormone levels, brain activity, muscle
activity, etc. being made available to the net so one may empirically
determine you were not entirely serious about what you wrote.
SMH
Paul O
:-) <Jobstie>