fisher@banzai.DEC (Ed Fisher, 381-2377) (07/29/85)
Re: RAAM rules > To remain officially in the race, riders must be within 48 hours > of the male or female leader beginning at the Mississippi (Memphis); At GEAR Princeton, Pete Penseyres said that the 48 hour rule would apply at the finish line this year. The reasoning for changing the rule to apply to the finish line was: Suppose the rule applied at the Mississippi as it did in '84 and only five riders made it across the Mississippi within the cutoff time. Now suppose that none of those five can actually finish, there would be no winner. Even worse, consider a possible strategy that has a rider going all out to make it to Memphis and drop all of the contenders, then he only has to roll on to the finish line alone and uncontested to win. Re: Traffic Laws In previous postings, many people have commented about whether or not to stop for stop signs, red lights, etc. Especially aggravating to me are those lights that turn red (for me) for a car to turn right, but that car turned right already when the light was green (for me) and I was not at the intersection yet. Whether or not I stop for such a light depends on how busy the intersection is. But, in general, I stop. Does anybody else out there stop for school buses? I remember one that I did not stop for because it passed me on an uphill just so that it could stop in front of me. Oh, those ghastly diesel fumes. Re: Chain Cleaning Now that there are so many people using VETTA Chain Cleaners, I wonder how many chain failures are going to result. Will it be higher or lower than before? My guess is that everything but the chain will last longer. With chains being the cheapest part of the drive train that may not be bad. Re: flat tires I've seen three sidewall failures in the last year from kevlar belted tires. Two were Cycle Pro folders that had been in service for a year. They blew out with big rips in the sidewall. They had been on the same bike, too, and went with 2 wks of each other. I know that one of the two did not hit anything special when it blew, no potholes in the area; I was about 10 ft behind it at the time. The third failure was a Specialized Touring K4 that hit a pothole in a puddle on a rainy (!) day. Has anyone had similar, or different, experiences with Cycle Pro folders? ed fisher DEC (DEC-E-NET) BANZAI::FISHER (UUCP) {decvax, ucbvax, allegra}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-banzai!fisher (ARPA) fisher%banzai.DEC@decwrl.ARPA
hamachi@ucbvax.ARPA (07/29/85)
From: hamachi (Gordon Hamachi) >Re: flat tires > >Has anyone had similar, or different, experiences with Cycle Pro folders? I have had nothing but bad experiences with Cycle Pro tires. On a cross- country tour 3 out of 4 Cycle Pro tires suffered catastrophic blow-outs, ruining the tube in the process. Fortunately they didn't all blow out in the same day or week, as bike shops are sometimes scarce along the Transamerica bike trail, and I had only 1 spare, a Specialized touring turbo. Specialized Expedition tires have been much better to me. I put over 3000 loaded touring miles on one set with only 2 flats (I foolishly rode through a patch of "Texas tacks"), and there is still plenty of tread left. The only drawback is that these tires won't clear some frames, as they are 27x1 3/8. In fact, I can't mount my back wheel unless the tire is deflated, although after it is mounted it works fine. --Gordon Hamachi