Five cool things coming soon from absoluteBlack, Shimano, Topeak, Hornit and Muc-Off

But, but... we NEED this. Because it makes us win the TdF. (We think. And it surely fully compensates for the loose back number waving in the wind.)

JL77 wrote:

But, but... we NEED this. Because it makes us win the TdF. (We think. And it surely fully compensates for the loose back number waving in the wind.)

I guarantee you that no TDF team is using that stupidly expensive ($716 in American dollars!) Absolute Black Hollowcage OSPW pulley cage, this is for those extremely stupid rich people who think they need the most expensive thing they can find to put on their bikes because they think they'll be as fast as Armstrong and they can brag to other stupid rich people they ride bikes with, it's sort of a contest, not a contest who can go the fastest, but a contest who can spend the most amount of money on their bikes.

The other crazy thing is that the Absolute Black company won't even tell you how much watts that crap will save you, all they will say is that it saves more watts then any other pulley, well that could be a 10th of a watt, now if they could prove it saved 100 watts well then we have something to consider, but people are buying this load of medicine man lingo crap thinking they're going to save a lot of watts, but they won't.

froze wrote:

I guarantee you that no TDF team is using that stupidly expensive ($716 in American dollars!) Absolute Black Hollowcage OSPW pulley cage, this is for those extremely stupid rich people who think they need the most expensive thing they can find to put on their bikes because they think they'll be as fast as Armstrong and they can brag to other stupid rich people they ride bikes with, it's sort of a contest, not a contest who can go the fastest, but a contest who can spend the most amount of money on their bikes.

Eh, well, that was exactly what I meant with my humoristic/sarcastic comment.

froze wrote:

I guarantee you that no TDF team is using that stupidly expensive ($716 in American dollars!) Absolute Black Hollowcage OSPW pulley cage, this is for those extremely stupid rich people who think they need the most expensive thing they can find to put on their bikes because they think they'll be as fast as Armstrong and they can brag to other stupid rich people they ride bikes with, it's sort of a contest, not a contest who can go the fastest, but a contest who can spend the most amount of money on their bikes.

It's at one end of a spectrum, but we're all on that spectrum. Only a tiny % of Genuine Racers really need to replace an old 531 frame with aluminium or carbon fibre; the rest of us would be able to ride just fine on an old Raleigh. (You'd probably want more modern brakes though). Practically everybody commenting below the line at road.cc has paid a premium for a groupset that's a few grams lighter than Claris/Sora, or slightly more aero handlebars, or a jersey that looks more pro than Primark, and that's OK - even though none of us are going to ride the TdF.

Where exactly would you draw the line between Essential Cycling Equipment and Needlessly Expensive Upgrades? Is it, perhaps, just above the level of what you personally spend?

brooksby wrote:

£500 for a derailleur pulley cage????  

Oh.

My.

God.

putting that into context a campag record EPS derailleur costs £390 and includes a pulley cage at no extra charge.

This is a hilarious level of marginal gain where a a gust of wind, a crack in the road, a 1/4 full water bottle, reaching down to tighten the shoes, 2w less exertion from a micro-rest would have a more significant effect on speed.

Blackthorne wrote:

This is a hilarious level of marginal gain where a a gust of wind, a crack in the road, a 1/4 full water bottle, reaching down to tighten the shoes, 2w less exertion from a micro-rest would have a more significant effect on speed.

Marginal gains, innit? They all add up

To be fair, the increased stability comes from the additional silicone 'stand', although this does solve a problem that I don't have.  In addition, it seems a strange solution given that the main premise for the product is improved eco credentials and yet, copied from the tinternet:

Silicone isn't the most environmentally friendly material on the market. ... To produce silicone uses hydrocarbons from petroleum. It's less than angelic start makes silicone difficult to recycle as most facilities don't accept it. 

I suspect the silcone base is there because the "bottle for life" is made from aluminium so will scratch and dent easily when it falls over. It would be nice if there was the option to buy it without though, as lots people would be happy enough with a dented bottle and one less random bit of plastic/silcone flaoting around in the shed.

bobbinogs wrote:

Silicone isn't the most environmentally friendly material on the market. ... To produce silicone uses hydrocarbons from petroleum. It's less than angelic start makes silicone difficult to recycle as most facilities don't accept it. 

isn't this keeping them locked up in solid form, rather than burning hem in engines and releasing them to the environment?

I've foolishly always thought the problem began with sucking all the arthropod-and-tree-fern sauce out in the first place rather than just leaving it where it was. On the other hand silicone does rather require silicon and that sounds an excellent way of locking up that sand so it doesn't get where it shouldn't. Hmm, if only there were some other traditional sand-based material we could make containers from that could currently be recycled?

It is, but it's in addition to burning them, not rather than. People aren't going to reduce their fuel consumption because you make some silicone bases.

And the point in the quote is not that hydrocarbons = bad because global warming. It's that hydrocarbons = bad because they're hard to recycle, so at some point these are likely to end up in landfill and/or breaking down in to microparticles doing who knows what to the environment.

Just had a look at the AB rear deraileur on their website, the biggest claim, and the one I find most impressive is the noise reduction which is a claimed 12db and given sound pressure is measured on a log scale this is the difference between an unoccupied broadcast studio and the sounds of a country park, or, whispering in a library and the sounds of a business office, or perhaps the difference between tumbleweed being blown across the desert and an irate youtuber.

The crowd has jumped on ABs 4th claim which is a small reduction in watts saved. AB's second claim is that the shifting is as good as or better than Dura Ace, the third is that it is more aero, fifth that is light and sixth it is the first monplate design. 

Nothing controversial in my eyes. Will be intereted to see if the reviewer notices the silent running of the rear mech, apparenrtly its biggest USP.

I think what's got most people raging against the AB derailleur are the claims other than the noise reduction haven't had any evidential backing. In fact, when it comes to reduction in watts they used the Ceramicspeed OSPW in the same video and the pulley wheels were turning under the force of the wind, the ABs were not.

Hambini and Peak Torque looked at this and basically pissed their sides. AB then went in on the comments and took it to a whole other level of childish and then got the video removed from the UK YouTube.

Apparently the AB head chap is known for being a bit of a child (ask ZeroFrictionCycling) and this has got the engineering community's back up.

I dare say if AB had come in with a reduced price and used the looks and the reduction in noise (GC Performance has actually measured a sizeable noise reduction) has a reason to swap, rather than laughable videos and a complete lack of evidence for the other claims, then it would have been met with less scepticism. 

In defence of the company they bloody well explain why the pulleys don't turn in the wind tunnel because they have been designed to turn more efficiently under load. 

I mean all it takes it to actually listen to their video to get this information. Whether or not it's true is another thing entriely. 

As for inventors being a little crackpot . . .