Re: Suspension losses

Am Fri, 10 Jan 2025 20:01:26 -0500 schrieb Frank Krygowski
<frkrygow@sbcglobal.net>:

On 1/10/2025 5:18 PM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:

 
This makes me reflect on the criticism of electronics in bicycles. ... But what about measuring the
amount of power applied to the pedals, what about telling the cyclist
who balanced he splits the power between left and right, by
instrumenting the pedal or the bottom bracket? 

>
Yes, that can be done with enough sensors and electronics. But it seems
like useless information to me. As with much computer software, it seems
like "feature bloat." Why would anybody but a racer care?

Is there any reason to believe that old people like me don't have a need
to care about training intensity, as a matter of principle?  How comes?

When using my biycles as a middle aged, healthy adult I didn't care
about racing, didn't train and didn't try to find company in cycling
clubs, either. I didn't visit a gym until much later. Cycling was simply
a way to get to work quickly. During vacations it was a more
entertaining mode of transportation than the car. Fitness, strength and
cardio fitness came as a side effect, slowly and almost unnoticed.

This has changed. My cardio fitness is still better than what I know
about a lot of people half my age. Nevertheless, it decreased over the
years and it takes more and more effort to keep what you have not yet
lost. As it is expected. The ability to measure power is helpful in
finding the point at which intensity is sufficient and overload has not
yet begun. This is even more true in combination with a heart rate
monitor.

So far, this is only about aging. But there is more.

Accidents that led to damage to bones, joints and tendons in the past
have consequences to be considered, too. There is a tendency to
compensate weaknesses by bad postures, whithout noticing. This is both
caused by damages and causing damages. This is to be avoided.  Measuring
how power is applied by the feet helps detecting differences early,
avoiding damage.

Avoiding damage is far from useless.

>

What about replacing
those awkward cables and complicated brifters with simple electric
switches and an encrypted wireless channel? Is that bad, because a
blacksmith can't repair it with his tools, like giving a horse a new
pair of horse shoes?  

>
Of course, you're welcome to use electric shifting if you like.

Thank you very much. :-)

>

(Or

brifters, which I don't!) But my life experience with electronic devices
makes me suspicious. I've seen too many examples of electronic devices
that simply stopped working, with no possible way of diagnosing the
problem - at least, not by me. And while I'm far from an electronics
expert, I'm better than the average citizen.

Live and learn.

My experiences with mechanical devices are at least as mixed as those
with electronic devices.  Some very complicated electronic devices that
I bought decades ago still work. The same applies to some that I built
myself a long time ago.  With devices that contained both electronic and
mechanical parts, the fault was more often on the mechanical side.

Anecdotical, I know.

>
Two days ago, my kid asked me to figure out why an electric blanket
wasn't working. The controller refused to turn on. I opened it and
confirmed that it was getting supply voltage. Beyond that, the pile of
dozens of surface mount electronic components was incomprehensible to
me. I suspect Jeff might have been able to diagnose it, but not me.
Here's a photo:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/16972296@N08/54259119364/in/dateposted-public/
I know electric blankets are old technology. I know they functioned well
for decades with maybe a rheostat and perhaps a couple of other
components. Why add unrepairable complexity?

Don't know.  We use devices like the blue one in the following picture.
<https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/W%C3%A4rmflasche1.jpg>
and better isolating blankets. No electricity necessary. :-)

A few lights in our house are switched by set of 2 x 3 inexpensive
wireless sockets including two remote controls, that I bought eleven
years ago. I've still to replace the batteries. Two of the sockets are
still spares, I have a replacement cell for the remote controls stored
which might live even longer. Standard type, used in garage openers and
burglar alarms, too. Selecting a channel and paring one of the four
buttons of a remote control with one or more of the sockets is as easy
as pie, using a line of dip switches inside those devices.  Quite
similar to pairing switches and derailleur on our bicyles.

While I avoid having essential functionality in my house depend on
wireless connections, I enjoy having the option, for certain use cases,
though. Same with bicycles.

>
Similarly, a good friend recently told me about her adventure with her
relatively new washing machine. During an expensive service visit, a
repairman told her the problem was somewhere in the main circuit board,
and that the only solution was to replace the expensive board. Our
washer is something like 35 years old, uses an electro-mechanical timer,
and will probably work well for whichever grandkid inherits it.

I can relate to that, up to a point.  A lot of our equipment is or was
of similar age, or even older. Had a similar experience with our oven,
when it was ten years and a month old. Error code xyz, "call service".
Expensive service visit by NEFF, proposed solution was replacing thre
expensive boards one after the other, without any guarantee. Almost as
expensive as a new oven. Refused, payed the service, decided not to buy
anything from NEFF again and tried the repair myself.  Found a pair of
cold solder joints just before the heating coil causing some protection
circuit to trigger, resoldered. Problem solved.  Wondered why a cold
joint took so long to break, then remembered having replaced the heating
coil years ago because of intermittent problems. Most probably, I
replaced a working heating coil, accidently somehow fixing the
connection, perhaps just by moving the oven out of his compartement. I'm
still using that oven for baking bread every two or three day.

On the other hand, while I won't enjoy having to replace our old washing
machine and the dryer, I know that new machines are a lot more efficent.
Dryers produce water instead of releasing hot steam, washing machines
spin the loundry much faster, etc. 

>
I'm positive my shifters are also going to be working for whichever
grandkid inherits them. I wouldn't be confident about electronic shifters.

I still have some carpentry tools which where already old before I was
born. I don't throw them away out of respect, but don't use any of
these. 

In a world where people get rid of cars when the are a few years old, I
don't see a point in conserving antique bicyles for later generations.
Not for _using_ these bicycles, that is.  I'm quite confident that it is
easier to make a electronic derailleur outlive the bicycle than doing
that with a mechanical one. Don't know about actual product, though.  I
have my doubts about the shifter, though. Guess what: it is a mechanical
problem. Replacing the CR2032 without damaging the contacts is a
mechanical problem. Cold be solved by a better mechanical solution, but
not by me.

>

What about LED lights, then? Shouldn't we get
back to incandescent bulbs, powered by bottle dynamos?

>
I love good LED bike lights. And in some cases, the LEDs are direct
replacements for incandescent bulbs.

Eeek.  I'd rather have a LED built into a well designed free form
reflector.

But I still use bottle dynos on two
bikes. They can be more than fine, depending on service requirements.

Sure. Exceptions from the rule are to be expected.

>

I think we should not and can not turn back the wheel, at least not like
this.  I accept that there are reasons to keep bicycles simple, or to
keep at least some biycles simple enough to long lived and usable even
without much maintenance and without exotic stuff. But the question is,
what makes a component or material exotic? Is a specific bowden cable or
a gear hub or hub generator really less exotic and simpler to
replace/recreate than, say, a LED light or a wireless shifter? I doubt
it.

>
It depends on the LED light, I suppose. Some seem to have on board
electronics as complicated as that blanket controller,

So what. At a certain point electronics just are components. You
wouldn't repair a halogen bulb, either. I don't care about how
complicated an electronic board is, I care about its MTBF.

and I don't know
why. (I am curious about that, having opened up one Busch & Muller
headlamp.) But I've opened and repaired both gear hubs and hub dynos
from the 1950s. They now work perfectly. That won't be true of current
electronic shifters 50 years from now.

I broke two gear hubs in sequence, didn't repair either one myself,
because I didn't have time for that, because of job, family and the time
needed for a long commute by bike.  First one broken beyond repair,
according to the shop, I learned to live with a missing gear with the
second one.  Bicycles are tools which wear out both through use and
technological progress. A lot sold as progress is just fashion. But
sometimes, a change is progress. I like having choices.

When I see a 50 year old, perfect looking bicycle, I think:
That one must have been standing around inside most of the time, perhaps
for a reason. There actually is such a bicycle in our family, a local
shop built it for my wife, long ago. Served its purpose, it is not
nearly as old, but old and nice enough to find a place to hang it on the
wall.  But taking it for a ride? Perhaps, for riding to a nearby ice
cream parlor during summer. :-)

--
Thank you for observing all safety precautions