Re: Disc brake maintenance tips

On Fri, 21 Jun 2024 20:45:53 -0500, AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

On 6/21/2024 8:22 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 6/21/2024 5:55 PM, Roger Merriman wrote:

A path-confined tricyclist wrote:

>
Actually, aerodynamic drag is a significant factor on a
Catrike. I do
my best to keep my water bottles and bags out of the wind
stream, I do
not wear any loose clothes that flap in the wind, but I
simply cannot
ride with my arms tucked in as the original Catrike setup.

>
I’d assume you’d still offer less to the wind than on a
two wheeler?
Assumptions are as ever sometimes just plain wrong!

 
I'd be slightly curious to see drag data. A recumbent
tricyclist may have less frontal area, as precisely measured
in square inches from a front view photo. OTOH, such a
bike+rider seems aerodynamically far "dirtier" than a normal
road bike. Two wide-spaced wheels with rims and spokes
churning the air, lots of transverse frame components with
non-aero cross sections, and especially two legs and feet
cranking and churning away in the very front of the bike.
ISTM aero flow would be completely turbulent from the first
bit all the way back.
 
We could ask the trike guy for coasting and weight data. But
that would require a hill and his cooperation. Neither are
available in his case.
 
I've briefly ridden part of one ride with a guy who rides a
recumbent trike with motor assist. I suppose I could have
tried drafting him to see if I could assess the size of his
wake; but he was far too slow to ride with for long.
 

On the other hand, I learned how to ride a two wheeler
before I was in
grade school, with no instruction. I think it's totally
ridiculous
that some fools would actually pay some dufus to teach
them how to
ride...
>

Kinda depends on what your doing...

 
Indeed! Nobody has ever claimed that riding back and forth
on a dead flat, empty paved rail-trail requires any
knowledge or skill. That's all the trike guy does.
 
When I mention riding to actually get somewhere practical,
he snarls something like "I never want to do that, and
neither should anyone else." Riding in the real world is one
of the thousands of things he doesn't like.
 

>
That's a complex question with a lot of necessarily either
unknown or arbitrary variables. Some addressed here:
>
https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/5883/isa-recumbent-trike-faster-than-a-non-recumbent-bicycle
>
and also:
>
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877705812016670
>
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167610520300441
>
I see your point and I agree to the extent that recumbents
can have more frontal area but a studied approach should get
a two wheel recumbent below any upright bicycle's frontal
area. Three wheel maybe but I don't know.

When asked, I told people I believe I can ride faster on a two
wheeler, but I can ride further on the Catrike, and with less
discomfort.

One other aspect is that wind speed effects lesson the closer you are
to the ground due to the wind's friction with the ground. That's
either a help or a hindrance.