Questions from jamesbenedict

[jamesbenedict]

Besides better handling in competition is a light weight bike a necessity on flat terrain? I consider about 25lbs to be heavy and 15lbs light weight. If I was in hilly terrain, I would likely want a 15lb bike even though I am the heavy item on a bike.

[jamesbenedict]

I am in my early 70s and need exercise. I have not ridden a bike in 50 years. A bike ride is better than walking and a bike can outrun a rogue dog. Finished assembly today and got on bike. I was surprised how poor I ride a bike. At slow speeds I won't fall over, but make many quick steering corrections. I ride like a new kid to a bike with a months training. I am more stable at higher speeds. I hope this gets better with riding more.

[brumby33]

I am in my early 70s and need exercise. I have not ridden a bike in 50 years. A bike ride is better than walking and a bike can outrun a rogue dog. Finished assembly today and got on bike. I was surprised how poor I ride a bike. At slow speeds I won't fall over, but make many quick steering corrections. I ride like a new kid to a bike with a months training. I am more stable at higher speeds. I hope this gets better with riding more.

Firstly James, welcome and good on you for getting a bike. Is the bike an E-bike or standard bike?
Ok lets get down to the nitty gritty, you're in your 70's and haven't ridden a bike in 50 years which means you are equal to a child learning to ride for pretty much the first time but don't worry, we're not going to have you in training side wheels.
When you're in the 70's or even 60's, your balance is not going to be as good as someone 20 years younger until you get used to balancing on 2 wheels again, don't worry too much about trying to outrun rogue dogs, they have a speed over 25kph so unless you can do that, the dog will win every time. I'm basically 10 years younger and I can't even outride a dog, especially a kelpie or larger. It's going to take some time James, you need to refine your balance skills and relearn a bit about gyroscopic where the opposite occurs. Do you remember when a kid you'd stand a bike up on it's rear wheel and get someone to spin the front wheel fast and if you turned the steering, the bike wanted to lean the opposite direction, so when your riding along a road and you try and turn the bike in a direction and the bike will lean in the opposite direction, same forces will apply.
It is how our bikes can stay upright going along even if there was no rider until it runs out of momentum, it's the wheels on the bike that cause the gyro affect and therefore help you to retain balance but you need to be moving in a reasonable pace otherwise the bike loses balance if it's not going quick enough.

If you're in a quiet area or can get the bike to a bike path area, then Just ride carefully till you get used to the sensation of 2 wheeled movement, just persevere with it.

Now for saddle height, now it might feel that you need to have the seat down as low as possible so you can get your feet on the ground, you're not supposed to be able to touch the ground while seated on a bicycle, it's best that you stand on pedals then slide forward to clear the seat before you come to a complete stop and then straddle the bike as your feet are on the ground, in the meantime, have your strongest leg on the pedal at the 2 0'clock position so when you put your weight on that pedal, the bike will move forward and you can slide back on the saddle, ideally your leg should be about 90% straight while bottom dead centre. If you have the saddle too low, your legs can't get full extension, and you will kill your knees.....last thing you want to do.

Sounds like a lot of instructions James but really all it is, is tips to help you on your way and it's merely practice practice practice. Is the bike a standard bike or is it an E-bike? That could be a big help to you as you gain some fitness.

[jamesbenedict]

Petal Bike. Ecarpat 700C road bike. Average dog can run 20mph for short burst. I used to ride 25mph on my burst and it could last over a city block.

[Dodgy-Knee]

I am in my early 70s and need exercise. I have not ridden a bike in 50 years. A bike ride is better than walking and a bike can outrun a rogue dog. Finished assembly today and got on bike. I was surprised how poor I ride a bike. At slow speeds I won't fall over, but make many quick steering corrections. I ride like a new kid to a bike with a months training. I am more stable at higher speeds. I hope this gets better with riding more.

Stick with it… your technique will get better with confidence and experience … after all, riding a bike is like … errr… riding a bike (!!)

[fat and old]

Having read your post re starting again after 50 years, I say absolutely not. The best bike for your current needs is a bike that is both comfortable and enjoyable to ride. Unless you're wanting to have the best for the sake of it and can afford to splash the cash. In that case, do it! JasonC's Atheos is a good example of lightness. G-BOAF also has a lightweight. Both enjoy and use their bikes for climbing and I assume the cycles help out. I'm sure others do too. I have a relatively light R5 Cervelo which is quite agile up the hills. It usually gets to the top of Arthurs Seat about 5 minutes before I do.

[warthog1]

Aero is far more important than weight;
While it is much easier to feel and measure the weight of a bike, for almost all riders and scenarios, aerodynamic optimisation will have a much greater impact on your on-road speed than reducing the weight of the bike.

https://bikerumor.com/aerodynamics-vs-w ... -cyclists/

[foo on patrol]

Light weight frames means nothing if the frame flexes like a lump of cooked spaghetti. A good set of wheels and tyres will do more for you than a light weight frame.

Foo

[foo on patrol]

I was out of the racing scene for 34yrs aand even low ier bikes with good wheels and bearing run nicely. I started off with a 10yr old 2nd hand bike when I started riding again and upgraded to a 2014 Scott Foil after I got some fitness an strength happening again and even with my race wheels in, it hits the scales at 7.8kg, so it's no light weight bike but it responds fast to powering up for sprints or kicks from low speeds for a chase and it is 250grms lighter than my Track bike with full disc wheels front and back, so weight means nothing unless you're an Elite rider as far as I'm concerned.

Foo

[g-boaf]

Besides better handling in competition is a light weight bike a necessity on flat terrain? I consider about 25lbs to be heavy and 15lbs light weight. If I was in hilly terrain, I would likely want a 15lb bike even though I am the heavy item on a bike.

15lbs is not particularly light weight, it's around the UCI minimum weight limit but there are certainly bikes well under that.

I have a 6.0kg bike with ceramic bottom bracket and ceramic other stuff that is really quick everywhere. It is hardly any slower than my Cervelo S5 and actually a lot nicer on descents because it is far less nervous and much less affected by cross winds. It is also has a very stiff frame, which might surprise some (above).

Light: https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-T9c ... 9cRRbZ.jpg
Aero: https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-jc3 ... c3xqj2.jpg

The lightweight bike is the better of the two overall - especially at very high speeds going downhill. Also way more comfortable. Even on alloy wheels it is still UCI illegal by a big margin, so it's just a matter of how far illegal it is.

Nowadays the lines are blurred, even some of those specific light weight bikes have aero designs so they are quick and you have the benefits of both worlds. Some manufacturers don't even do specific aero or light bikes, they just do the one bike that does everything.

The days of old classic Cannondale SuperSix Evo Hi-Mod frames are gone.

Besides better handling in competition is a light weight bike a necessity on flat terrain? I consider about 25lbs to be heavy and 15lbs light weight. If I was in hilly terrain, I would likely want a 15lb bike even though I am the heavy item on a bike.

The handling is influenced by other factors as well.

[jamesbenedict]

I bought new bike and tires stated inflate to 85 to 100 PSI. The gas station only had maximum of 70lbs. Is 70 PSI ok?

[AndrewCowley]

What sort of bike and how wide are the tyres?

Be careful with inflating your tyres at a service station. Their pressure gauges are notoriously inaccurate / faulty.

[P!N20]

https://oniony.com/cycling/calc/pressure/

[Bunged Knee]

You bought your new bike for cheap.
There are pumps.https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bicycle+tool ... lick_2_13 , , tools, tyres.tubes,lights,puncture repair kits in Amazon site too.

Why do you need service station pump for if you get a puncture somewhere else?

[warthog1]

I also have an S5. It is faster than my simlar era TCR everywhere. Both have 50mm carbon wheels and neither are in the slightest bit nervous.
Team Visma used the S5 far more than the R5 in the TDF is my understanding as it is just faster.
I posted a link earlier on that explains why. Drag increases exponentially with speed and there is still aero drag when climbing it needs to slow right down thus be pretty steep before weight becomes more significant.

[g-boaf]

I also have an S5. It is faster than my simlar era TCR everywhere. Both have 50mm carbon wheels and neither are in the slightest bit nervous.
Team Visma used the S5 far more than the R5 in the TDF is my understanding as it is just faster.
I posted a link earlier on that explains why. Drag increases exponentially with speed and there is still aero drag when climbing it needs to slow right down thus be pretty steep before weight becomes more significant.

The Ultimate CF Evo is also much faster than my old TCR SL1, I found that out when I swapped from one to the other - it is a lot more aero. It is a partly aero bike that just happens to be extremely light, or even lighter in the Evo SL version (5.1kg). If you rode it, you'd understand.

Comparing both - they are hardly much difference, except going up any hills where the S5 is just too heavy. I prefer the disc brakes of the S5 but for everything else the Canyon is a much better bike. That's just how it is.

All this is however not relevant to the scenario of the OP if we look at his other posts:
viewtopic.php?p=1618824#p1618824

Different priorities for the OP - such as getting back to riding and gaining confidence.

[warthog1]

Ridden plenty of bikes. My racing strength was tt. Aero just kills weight.
From that link I posted earlier;

To try and provide some insight to those who don’t want to build all this into a spreadsheet, we can frame some of these principles in a less complex way using a very simple case study. Consider what happens when you add 1 kg of dead mass to your bike, i.e. with no benefit from reduced drag. In the context of high-performance road bikes, this is a big change in bike weight. Certainly, something that a rider will feel when they hold or pick up the bike. Most road riders would consider this to have a dramatic impact on performance. If we take a case study for an amateur rider: a 75kg rider, 7.5kg bike, 7% gradient climb, 15km/h road speed. Climbing at this speed and slope would require ~275 W. An amount sustainable for a fit amateur rider of this size (3.7 W/kg). The addition of the 1kg dead weight would add only 3W resistance under these conditions. This is not nothing, but it is just a little over a 1% increase in resistance. For a rider who isn’t competing at a high level, this difference is not going to make or break their ride. In fact, this equates to less than 0.5-second time loss over a 5km climb. If we reduce that performance to 2.5 W/kg the power difference is 2 W and the time difference is 0.5 seconds to the same significant figures. Basically, less power available reduces road speeds, which reduces the magnitude of power differential but increases the time saved — since the rider’s total time over the segment is proportionally longer.

Weight is not as significant as most riders probably believe. Even with no aerodynamic improvement, a 1 kg difference has a relatively small impact on road speed. Conversely, if you start with a setup that has relatively high drag, a 1kg mass difference could be spent on a huge amount of aerodynamic optimisation. For the same rider and power output you could see at least 20W power savings on a flat road when comparing a classic round tube frame with low-profile wheels to a modern race bike. So perhaps a simpler question to address this phenomenon is how much should a rider care about weight or aerodynamics? While it is much easier to feel and measure the weight of a bike, for almost all riders and scenarios, aerodynamic optimisation will have a much greater impact on your on-road speed than reducing the weight of the bike.

[jamesbenedict]

Tire is 700C x 28. The bike is a Ecarpat 700C road bike. Per the air pressure calculator it states 68psi in front and 84psi in rear. If I get a flat tire I take the bike to bike repair shop.

[open roader]

700 x 28mm tyre (AT) 70psi is Ok if you + load = 80kg or less.

The real answer is how long is a piece of string?

I ride my 700 x 28 tyres with only 65psi in the front and 72psi in the rear - recreational rural road riding. Some may argue there is a chance the tyre may peel off the rim at low pressure like this others may argue you can go even lower without danger.

The tyre manufacturer states min pressures to cover their arse in case a lower pressure causes the tyre to deform off the rim.

[jamesbenedict]

700 x 28mm tyre (AT) 70psi is Ok if you + load = 80kg or less.

The real answer is how long is a piece of string?

I ride my 700 x 28 tyres with only 65psi in the front and 72psi in the rear - recreational rural road riding. Some may argue there is a chance the tyre may peel off the rim at low pressure like this others may argue you can go even lower without danger.

The tyre manufacturer states min pressures to cover their arse in case a lower pressure causes the tyre to deform off the rim.

Great, I am good to go.

[jamesbenedict]

I bought a new road bike bike last week. However, it is not complete safety wise. Accessories I believe are necessary is a rear view mirror and a smart rear brake light (no night riding for me). Also bought cleated bike riding shoes that are a good idea. Two other non safety accessories I bought is a wire spring seat for comfort and a digital speedometer. What are your safety requirements on a bike when riding on a public road?

[Duck!]

As alluded to previously, tyre manufacturers' minimum/maximum pressure ratings are typically pretty conservative, although higher pressure will put stress on other parts of the wheel, which can lead to premature failure. Individual rider weight will heavily (pun not intended) dictate the ideal pressure in any given tyre, but generally err toward the lowest you can get away with.

I can't remember where I read it, but a commonly accepted rule for optimum pressure for tyre size vs rider weight is a 15% "squish" factor... Inflate the tyres to the low end of the recommended pressure range; with no weight on the bike, measure the tyre profile from ground to the point of the rim closest to the ground. Then get on the bike and get an assistant to repeat the measurements; under load the measured profile should be 15% less than the unloaded profile - the squish factor. Adjust pressure until you reach optimum squish.

The rearward bias of the rider on the bike will dictate that the rear tyre will always need to be inflated to a slightly higher pressure than the front.

[jamesbenedict]

I started riding again after 50 years. I rejected the seat that came with the bike before the bike arrived as it was narrow and looks uncomfortable. I ordered a 2 inch wider seat with wire springs. Upon trying both seats I do not like the wire seat as much as the stock seat. The springs do not collapse much (made for 250 pounder?) and the seat feels wishy-washy on the bike as it can rock back and forth. from side to side. The stock seat has 3/4 inch padding, feels stabile and it does not hurt too much. Weight 175lbs. Go figure.

[jamesbenedict]

I am setting up my new bike seat. I read two leg adjustments. One is leg is extended straight with knee straight and full pressure on pedals and other is leg is extended almost straight with knee at 90% straight and this always applies full pressure on the petals. Which one?

[AndrewCowley]

At the bottom of the pedal stroke, your leg should still be bent.

http://roadcyclingacademy.com/wp-conten ... 4x683.jpeg