Re: Suspension losses

On 1/13/2025 2:48 PM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:

Am Mon, 13 Jan 2025 12:27:27 -0500 schrieb Frank Krygowski
<frkrygow@sbcglobal.net>:

>
As I said, I hate the Kleenex ethic - "It's no good any more, just throw
it away."

>
A strawman isn't getting any more pretty, over time. You won't find many
complex products, machines, vehicles or components with an unlimited
lifetime.  Product lifetime has to be planned. There is innovation,
innovation means change.  There are technical limits. So far, I haven't
heard about bicycle tires that tolerate heavy use over a lifetime of 40
years, as you ask for.  To be precise, I don't know of any that I would
like to use or that I would risk using.

>
I think my Cannondale touring bike qualifies. Of course I've replaced
consumable items like tires, chains, cogs, brake shoes, handlebar tape
and occasionally a chainring.

 That way, any bicycle qualifies.

I agree! Or at least, I agree about most bikes. That's one of the things I love about bicycling in general, compared to (say) automobiles.

There is essentially no part of a  bicycle that isn't "consumable". 

I disagree. I don't expect to ever wear out the frame, fork, handlebars, stem, seatpost, hubs, pedals, front derailleur, and maybe not the rear derailleur. I may someday wear out the bottle dynamo on that bike (it's decades old) but maybe not.
There were items I changed out of preference (like the original downtube shifters) but it wasn't because they were worn out. Those would have lasted forever.
Admittedly, there's an apocryphal tale about someone owning an ancient, ancient hatchet - sometimes it's been told as George Washington's, or Abe Lincoln's, or a great-great-great-grandfather's. Is it the same hatchet, even though it's handle was replaced five times and its head twice? :-)  A more classical version of that question regards the Ship of Theseus, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

I've made some equipment substitutions
(saddle, bar-end shifters, "aero" brake levers) but the original
equipment is exceptionally durable.

 That is a tautology. Of course the remaining equipment is exeptionally
durable, otherwise it would have been replaced earlier, for whatever
reason.

Nope, I covered this above. And the shifters and brake levers on my "utility" Raleigh, formerly for commuting, now for shopping, are far older. Mid 1970s, still working fine.

So why didn't you buy a 40 years old bicycle from somebody who doesn't
need his bicycle anymore?

One reason is in 1986 when I bought this bike, there was no such thing as a 40 year old Cannondale touring bike.

That some people like you have the time, space and energy
to maintain a bicycle much longer than its useful life is under normal
conditions doesn't prove the opposite.  That is not an argument against
repairing, but an argument against repairing, whatever the cost. I'm not
talking about money only, here. I mostly miss a sense of proportion.

I promise to let you know if this bike ever exceeds its "useful life." (We might ask Andrew the age of his fixed gear bike.)

Anyway, I see no reason why the wireless shifting of our bikes shouldn't
outlive a similar purely mechanical one...

>
I guess we'll see, eventually.

 If we don't try, we certainly won't see it. Try to see it the following
way: _you_ don't have any reason to try a group with wireless shifting
like the one I built our bikes with, I understand that.  So just let
people like us who experience, like and sometimes need the benefits pay
the money, try this innovation, and serve as guinea pigs.

Oh, I'm very happy to do that! :-)  I've been a Late Adopter of many technologies. I was rather amazed at myself when I bought the EV.

About that: A few years ago I got annoyed at the number of remotes. I'd
read a good review about a programmable universal remote, and bought it.
I followed the tedious instructions to program it so I could hit one
button for "Watch TV", another button for "Play CD", another button for
"Listen to radio" etc.
>
It's less than ideal. Part of the problem, I think, is that some of the
devices use the same signal code as a toggle for "power-on" &
"power-off", as opposed to a separate code for "On" and "Off." If a
device is left in the wrong state, things don't work. There was also
some dimly remembered problem where commands from the remote had to
arrive at the TV at the proper instant - not too soon, not too late -
and the program couldn't manage that, despite the nice lady at the 800
help number trying over and over to cure. (I suppose I could dig back
into the programming, but I'm not motivated.)...

 >

Knowing neither your universal control, nor
anything about the remote control in question, I can't even guess what
is causing that problem. 

It's a Logitech Harmony 650, bought in 2019. I kept my pages of frustrated notes from trying to set it up. They're interesting to read through. It doesn't matter, though. I'm getting along with it now, partly be ignoring what's supposed to be a lot of its capabilities.
--
- Frank Krygowski