Titanium Wedding Ring, Why Titanium Not Popular In Ironman ?
Q: I was at the napa world cup last year and bought a titanium wedding ring for my husband. Don't know the name of a company who carries them here in Sacto, C
A: It was a canadian company whose name I have forgotten and
can't find in the back of various cycling magazines. Any one out there
have an idea who to contact? A recently married friend of mine wants to
know.
A:Seriously, my 650C-wheeled bike is geared with a 53x11, and our 700C-wheeled
tandem is geared with the same, and so far the cogs and chains seem to be
holding up just fine, even though I don't have the time to clean and lube
things as often as I'd like. However, all other things being equal (which I
recognize is usually not the case), I'd prefer a larger chainring and cog, to
try to get back some of that ~2% of power lost to friction in the chain. For
example, this past summer I went with a 60x12 top gear instead of 53x11 top
gear for the TT in Tallahassee, with additional benefits being that 1) with
more chain wrapped around the chainring, I could dispense with the front
derailleur w/o having to worry about dropping the chain, and 2) a single 60
tooth ring is quite sinister looking. (Not that any of this helped, of
course, since the closest I got to Carl Sundquist and his 50:17 40k was 30 s,
i.e., right when I started...)
Speaking of big rings w/ shifting ramps - are the ones you mentioned
available w/o the rest of the bike being attached? We could use something a
bit bigger on the tandem, since w/ roughly twice the power w/o twice the drag
there is some benefit to pedaling even at ~40 mph, which is about where my
slow-twitch wife and I currently run out of gear...
i agree gerard, i think the friction advantage of a bigger ring is very
incremental and frankly questionable. the one case when i do like a
bigger ring and cog, though, or bigger wheels, and i think this is the one
gearing drawback to our bikes, is that on the very high end the difference
in gear between 12 and 11 is noticeably large. when you plunk the chain
into the 11 it has that feel of flipping the overdrive toggle on