On Thu, 2009-11-19 at 22:27 -0700, PATRICK MOORE wrote: > > Would you find a very poorly maintained bike fun to ride, even slowly? > --one with inefficient brakes, sluggish tires, excessively tight > bearings, badly lubed chain, handlebar awry, saddle badly placed, left > pedal broken, derailleur mis-adjusted, and so forth? That's extreme, > of course, but the extremes define the middle. All things being equal, > of course an efficient bike is more fun,
But your negative example doesn't demonstrate "inefficiency", it demonstrates poor maintenance and poor adjustment. I don't think anyone would dispute that such a badly maintained bike would be unpleasant. But imagine a well maintained, well fitting bike with a demonstrably less efficient drivetrain that utilizes extremely small sprockets like the Capreo cassette -- say, for example, a high end Moulton. Science clearly shows, those 9, 10 and 11 tooth sprockets are far less efficient than 14 tooth. But people who ride those high end Moultons love them, and find them highly enjoyable to ride -- in fact, Moulton owners are a highly enthusiastic cult -- and never notice or remark on the proven inefficiency of their drivetrains. > even if you are not trying to go particularly fast, since it does > what you want it to do better than one that is not efficient. And the > coincidence of "what you want" and "what you get" makes for fun! And by the way, those Moultons are very fast. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=.
