Anatomy of a Photo: Rules Pioneer

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• @PT

  @pistard

  @PT

  Seeing as its come up, what is the issue behind placing your bicycle upside down? Apart from looking ungainly, it would seem to be the most practical way of getting at your wheels or drivetrain while effecting roadside repairs on your own.

  Or am I missing something?

  Is it just like the sunglasses over the helmet straps issue?

  Signed,

  Confused.

  Dear Confused,

  1. Besides being disrespectful, it's a surefire way to scratch or soil your saddle, stem, bars, tape and/or hoods. It's also pretty much guaranteed that your bike will fall over in the two seconds you turn around to grab your multitool.

  2. In the days before aero cabling, it could also put a kink in the housings where they exited the brake levers.

  3. They're called dropouts for a reason.

  Best regards,

  Abigail Van Pistard

  Dear Abigail,

  Thankyou for the speedy and forthright advice.

  While I comprehend (certainly on the unsuitability or inverting ones steed when dealing with older generations of brake hoods), I must beg to differ. The Campy shifter tips are rubber and the fi'zi:k seat is also some leather-like product under which I carefully place a suitable item (like a cap) to minimize scratches. Dropouts are, indeed, drop-outs, I will grant you that.

  Nevertheless, I cannot foresee compliant behavior from me in regard to this particular rule. Which is unusual as I manage to follow most others.

  Sincerely,

  The Disrespectful Recidivist

  If you think it is easier to drop out a rear wheel upside down, then might i suggest you are doing it wrong when attempting it upright?  Funnily enough in days of yore i was known to abuse my steed in this way because i was forever wrestling by the side of the road with my rear wheel in some kind of headlock game of submission.

  thankfully my cycling sinsei came to my rescue and showed me how to do it very quickly and easily...skyward days of rubber are now thankfully a thing of the past.

  if you already know all this then you have me confused.....why do you think it is easier upside down?  This is the sort of logic Mrs Deakus would use!

• @PT

  @pistard

  @PT

  Seeing as its come up, what is the issue behind placing your bicycle upside down? Apart from looking ungainly, it would seem to be the most practical way of getting at your wheels or drivetrain while effecting roadside repairs on your own.

  Or am I missing something?

  Is it just like the sunglasses over the helmet straps issue?

  Signed,

  Confused.

  Dear Confused,

  1. Besides being disrespectful, it's a surefire way to scratch or soil your saddle, stem, bars, tape and/or hoods. It's also pretty much guaranteed that your bike will fall over in the two seconds you turn around to grab your multitool.

  2. In the days before aero cabling, it could also put a kink in the housings where they exited the brake levers.

  3. They're called dropouts for a reason.

  Best regards,

  Abigail Van Pistard

  Dear Abigail,

  Thankyou for the speedy and forthright advice.

  While I comprehend (certainly on the unsuitability or inverting ones steed when dealing with older generations of brake hoods), I must beg to differ. The Campy shifter tips are rubber and the fi'zi:k seat is also some leather-like product under which I carefully place a suitable item (like a cap) to minimize scratches. Dropouts are, indeed, drop-outs, I will grant you that.

  Nevertheless, I cannot foresee compliant behavior from me in regard to this particular rule. Which is unusual as I manage to follow most others.

  Sincerely,

  The Disrespectful Recidivist

  Dear Recidivist,

  I have noticed young hooligans parking their BMXs thusly inverted at the local video arcade. I will assume you are one of them.

  Best,

  Pissy Van Buren

• @PT

  @pistard

  @PT

  Seeing as its come up, what is the issue behind placing your bicycle upside down? Apart from looking ungainly, it would seem to be the most practical way of getting at your wheels or drivetrain while effecting roadside repairs on your own.

  Or am I missing something?

  Is it just like the sunglasses over the helmet straps issue?

  Signed,

  Confused.

  Dear Confused,

  1. Besides being disrespectful, it's a surefire way to scratch or soil your saddle, stem, bars, tape and/or hoods. It's also pretty much guaranteed that your bike will fall over in the two seconds you turn around to grab your multitool.

  2. In the days before aero cabling, it could also put a kink in the housings where they exited the brake levers.

  3. They're called dropouts for a reason.

  Best regards,

  Abigail Van Pistard

  Dear Abigail,

  Thankyou for the speedy and forthright advice.

  While I comprehend (certainly on the unsuitability or inverting ones steed when dealing with older generations of brake hoods), I must beg to differ. The Campy shifter tips are rubber and the fi'zi:k seat is also some leather-like product under which I carefully place a suitable item (like a cap) to minimize scratches. Dropouts are, indeed, drop-outs, I will grant you that.

  Nevertheless, I cannot foresee compliant behavior from me in regard to this particular rule. Which is unusual as I manage to follow most others.

  Sincerely,

  The Disrespectful Recidivist

  Given you don't care(find them not applicable) for the stated reasons, let me give you the most important one. The chance that your ride falls over and damages the drive train. This cannot happen when it is laying on it's left side.

• @@colossal

  Want to see the after pic - hoping he wrapped the spent tube around his shoulders as he completed the task at hand and carried on in a casually deliberative fashion to crush the others to the summit of the climb. With the shoe/sock combo, victory was assured.

  Something about the position of the bike on the road, on the right side and with front fork facing downhill, could be seen as indication that Walter got the puncture on the descent?

• @Gianni

  @johnthughes

  After moving to Belgium, I was informed that a mini-pump is considered superior to CO2 on the basis that if one is serious about one's ride, then one needs a way to maintain a high heart rate while changing a flat. Of course that was translated roughly from Vlaams to English by a third party(I am only just yet learning the mother-tongue). It was a rough translation to my understanding, but I was told it was "close enough" by a smirking hardman in the rain.

  Do keep us informed on the conversion to a Belgian life. Vlaams seems like a tough one to pick up. Keep us posted with more "smirking hardman" anecdotes.

  The language is both easy(Lots of words that are the same or very similar) and hard(words and sounds that don't exist in US english; 'd's that sound like 't's, 'b's that sound like 'p's, 't's that sound like 'c's except for "sometimes")...and it is a challenge. Necessary though. Everyone in my club can  speak english...except when we are riding, then it is all Vlaams. To be honest, I have been here for 2.5 years and am just now working on the language with any seriousness(I am a bit ashamed about that). As for conversion....I have been sold since my arrival here. I love the US, but I am not coming back permanently if I have any choice. I plan to live and die in Belgium. Cycling is such a different thing here(possibly an obvious statement). From the worst of it; solo canal work in a headwind that will strip every layer of ego you didn't know you had; but still awesome. To the best of it; a house in the Ardennes for a week, riding the roads around Houffalize, La Roche-en-Ardennes, and up to Signal Botrange and Baraque Michelle. Or still amazing, if not less majestic, just the Wednesday night ride with the club, tucked into a peloton of 30 riders, just one of 3-5 groups from my club(a small one) out on the canals with many many other clubs, as if it were some kind of giant stage race involving the whole country. Winter is a whole other story....still filled with cycling. Never have I looked outside on a sunday morning just above freezing and thought "Just 30 more minutes and its time meet the group and go ride, I can't wait!", but here....here it is like a drug. I have headed out into the worst of weather, and not once ever regretted it after. For me a long ride was 50 miles, and 100 miles was a mystery to worry about. Here, there is no trepidation. Ride with the club to the sea and back with a pasta lunch in between(230km)? Sure! The LvdK(Lady van de Kempen) says "Lets just ride to Malmedey(from Antwerp) and back this weekend. It's just 190km each way. And we get to ride up and over the highest point in Belgium[admitedly not saying much]. We can stay at the youth hostel and drink the local beers." and I reply "Of course, lets go!". I am not sure why I just wrote all this. I guess I should have just wrote "I'll do my best to report back any quotes I can." I'll try to keep it more terse next time.

  Cheers

• @johnthughes

  Don't apologise.  You've just won the internet.

  Thanks for writing.  The best thing I've read since I heard that @Marcus went to hospital with a fork inserted in his todger.

• @ChrisO

   

  I don't know what it is but something is seriously wrong to have that many flats in that time.

  How many kms are you doing ?

  250 to 300 each week. 

• @Collin

  @Puffy

  I'm with @ChrisO. 28 flats for this year? That seems really high. I think I'm around 5 or 6 flats for the year, putting me around 2000km/flat with plenty of those miles on chip-sealed, pot-holed Michigan roads.

  What tires do you run? GP4000s have been pretty resilient and Gatorskins up the ante even further. Cheap tires increase the likelihood of flats. I've found if I take my bike out with the cheap tires I use for the rollers, I get a flat almost every ride.

  i used to run gp400s but kept loosing the tyre with sidewall punctures. That's a $50AUD tyre. Now, maxxis refuse ($20 to $35) which get binned when they are too cut up. No side wall punctures in those but they never see a full life. Go through one a month probably. Gators are freaking horrible. An experience I'd rather forget especially in the wet.

• That photo just oozes style. Observe that delicate balancing act. Is it possible that the left edge of his seat is not even touching the road? Probably not but inside pedal and left bar plug only....? classy

• @pistard

  @PT

  I have noticed young hooligans parking their BMXs thusly inverted at the local video arcade. I will assume you are one of them.

  Best,

  Pissy Van Buren

  My son rides BMX. I do not like the inversion but it is a little different with them. The seat is too low to touch the ground for a start, it is also hard plastic, no padding since it is rarely used. The rear wheel touches down at the back and the flat bars at the front. There are no levers save one brake which does not touch the ground. It is typically only done on the grass in the "pit area" along with the others waiting for their turn. In this way they are neat tidy and take up little room.