Started watching this during my indoor ride this morning. Pretty cool coverage with commentary from within some of the teams. Cool to see some bts of the bigger crits from around the States

https://youtu.be/YcbqJPqqZkA?si=4o1x2aPD9R3trHmO 

New York sucks for cycling 
https://youtu.be/jkukApHJdvg?si=Wr_73mJe4b9T0P86

Mark Taylor said:

New York sucks for cycling 
https://youtu.be/jkukApHJdvg?si=Wr_73mJe4b9T0P86

Wonder who shot it.

@BlakeFoster

Crits can be lots of fun to watch and race.  However, they also do sometimes seem to engender behavior that's too aggro by at least half, and the US's most prominent crit team, Legion of LA, and their boss, Justin Williams, have been routine transgressors.  I"m hoping that will change.

Forever Puck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvbywJlhK8M

Enjoyed this.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btMzbEGc7B4

In the actual race, was cool to see Faulkner try and actually close all the gaps, altho I expected that she would pay for it, finishing 6th 

btw, just in case, from a year or two ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdSBuMVDVEg

mugwump said:

@BlakeFoster

Crits can be lots of fun to watch and race.  However, they also do sometimes seem to engender behavior that's too aggro by at least half, and the US's most prominent crit team, Legion of LA, and their boss, Justin Williams, have been routine transgressors.  I"m hoping that will change.

In the bad, old days, New Jersey had lots of crits. Memorial Day Weekend in New Jersey was the center of the crit racing scene in the US.  The Saturday race changed over the years, but for a long time, it was Sunday's Tour of Nutley and Monday's Tour of Somerville.  both of those had huge crowds and massive fields.  Somerville, in the '90s was offering a prime every lap for 50 miles and a prize list that was something like 40 or 50 deep.  200 racers would line up for the pro/am men's race.

Below is a shot from the 1995 tour of somerville on the back straight.  Both sides of the street had parties in front of just about every house, and, for the drinkers, there were beer hand-ups all the way down this straight after the race was over.  I'm the guy at the front with the yellow-frame glasses.  

This is awesome, thanks for sharing!

Haven't watched this yet.  But I plan to get to it

I've never seen that PBS doc, but one of my favorite podcasts did an episode on Major Taylor a few years ago.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Uzh99XMaA4ClIM7Sm1xP2?si=61c4bedc66e343d5

It's a history comedy podcast, but hosts are pretty funny and keep things real.

From Escape Collective photo recap of Strade Blanche, as if there isn't enough stuff to argue about! The caption is perfect.

Interesting interview with Cavendish. Really fascinating for me to see how much he has matured. I absolutely couldn't stand him when he was younger.

Curious what the "magic" was Wiggens passed on from Boardman to Cav...

https://youtu.be/Fz-aRTREIpE?si=153F3l5BfAvHjI4J

David Yang said:

From Escape Collective photo recap of Strade Blanche, as if there isn't enough stuff to argue about! The caption is perfect.

Wonder if he realizes Strade Bianche wasn't a cross race (great form though)

I'll be honest, the new canyon I bought end of last year came with Zipp hookless rims. I'm pretty stressed about them given all the hoopla! 

Certainly with some of the races on tougher pavements, I always wonder if the tradeoff between reliability and (aero)performance isn’t too often made in favor of 5 theoretical watts of gains over the time it takes to get a new bike in case of failure/flats/crash/this

Francis Cade did an interesting video on hookless vs hooked rims. On hooked rims, the margin between highest psi rating and failure was massive (something like 30-40psi) and well above what anyone would ever ride these days. For hookless the margin was incredibly close(within 10psi if I'm remembering correctly) and well within the range of where someone would put their tires today. 

Obviously it's far from scientific but seeing how small the margin of error is on hookless was pretty eye opening/concerning

Hookless road just doesn't make sense.  The major (only?) benefit is simpler, cheaper manufacturing but that savings is unlikely to be passed on to the consumer.  Or at least the timing of hookless becoming a things just happened to coincide with high inflation and other factors that absorbed those savings.

Like Matt mentioned, the margin for error is quite thin and the result of a failure can be serious.  

Probability x Consequences

It's a very old equation.

I can never unsee this now

https://youtu.be/kNK_hAIO8L8?si=tFUdhpPx590tV34J

Three great things: Bikes, Stanley, and Samwise Gamgee.  Sign me up!

Matt Budofsky said:

Francis Cade did an interesting video on hookless vs hooked rims. On hooked rims, the margin between highest psi rating and failure was massive (something like 30-40psi) and well above what anyone would ever ride these days. For hookless the margin was incredibly close(within 10psi if I'm remembering correctly) and well within the range of where someone would put their tires today. 

Obviously it's far from scientific but seeing how small the margin of error is on hookless was pretty eye opening/concerning

They pumped a tubeless tire hookless to 110psi and it exploded catastrophically. Then they pumped a hooked rim tubeless to 170psi, at which point enough air escapes the system that you can't put more in, but that was it, no failure otherwise hooked. 

They also make the point that 100psi is not unheard of, and how the expectation that most cyclists would know the differences is not realistic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKzEpit1nvo

Are you saying that folks are putting 100 psi in their tubeless tires ?

@eloy yep this is the one I was thinking of. Just highlights where that margin of error is. Sure no one should be putting 100 psi in tubeless tires, but the scenario of someone over pumping and getting to 100 psi and not realizing it (or is not savy about the tech they have on their bike) is 100%  more likely than someone pumping a tire up to the failure point on a hooked rim.

It was only a few years ago that 100psi was the standard, and as mentioned in the video, if you use a CO2 to repair or inflate a tire, it wouldn't be difficult to go over 80 psi unaware -- which is above the standard for hookless. The important piece, of course, if that hookless failed catastrophically, everything broke. You would crash hard if that happened while riding. The hooked system just did not care. 

This reminds me of when fomer (?) KCC Jeff Condon flatted going downhill in a road race and the tire came off, leading to a bad crash. At the time the wisdom was that glue-ons would leave you with some modicum of traction.

Curmudgeon's list of good things about modern bikes:
disk brakes
hookless rims

Jules said:

This reminds me of when fomer (?) KCC Jeff Condon flatted going downhill in a road race and the tire came off, leading to a bad crash. At the time the wisdom was that glue-ons would leave you with some modicum of traction.

Curmudgeon's list of good things about modern bikes:
disk brakes
hookless rims

I think the modern term for what you describe is "run flat technology" aka a 130 year-old process of securing a sealed casing to a rim created before Michelin developed the clincher.  

Ironically, the tire liners are being used to prevent the flattened tubeless tire from rolling off a rim--they are supposed to be compressed by air pressure, putting them in the rim channel when teh tire is inflated, and the drop is pressure allows the liner to expand.  

 From Vittoria's website,  

"Tested on trails and perfected on tarmac, the Air-Liner Road brings the stability, plush comfort, and puncture protection of the proven Air-Liner design to bear on chip seal and potholes. The weight is also very suited for roadies – it weighs less than the sealant needed to mount the tire. The Air-Liner Road’s high-density polymer compresses under the higher PSI of road tires, so it lets the tire’s casing and compound maintain their supple feel and responsiveness while the tire’s inflated. In the event of a puncture, the Air-Liner road expands to fill the void, keeping the tire secure on the rim bead and letting you ride up to 30 miles (50km) as a run-flat. No mid-ride repairs, and no call of shame to have someone pick you up." 

Wait wait wait, what is this??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNK_hAIO8L8

Modine was involved with TA for a bunch of years.  Wonder if he had a part in making the movie happen.

Didn't I post that like a month ago