See likes

See likes given/taken


Your posts liked by others

Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 8
Post info No. of Likes
Re: Carbon spokes or CX Ray? The youtuber PeakTorque has been testing lateral stiffness of several wheels, where he measures rim deflection when placing a weight on the rim of a wheel oriented parallel to the ground, supported at the axle. In these tests, carbon-spoked rims tend to be laterally stiffer than metal spoked wheels. If you look at his Winspace Hyper D67 review video, you will see his graph with the most updated results.

This form of lateral stiffness supposedly translates to wheel flop under load (the kind that causes brake rub). Whether lateral stiffness should be maximized or optimized, or if it has anything to do with how "responsive" the wheel feels is something we can argue over, but it's clear that this way of measuring lateral stiffness is widespread in the industry. Personally I question if this measurement translates well to the wheel flop caused by pedaling, which is sensitive to spoke lacing patterns.

The flip side to high lateral stiffness is that you lose bump compliance in corners. This is because steel spokes stretch more than carbon spokes (by an order of magnitude!) I personally think this is really important in racing, where it's much more important to be able to comfortably rail through corners with rough asphalt, than to save 100 grams or so. Back in the day (10 years ago or so) an old teammate of mine worked at HED, who told me about how HED believed in moderating spoke tension and using a higher spoke angle--specifically pointing at how Zipp at the time would run high spoke tensions with rear wheels laced radially on one side. (I can attest that Zipp wheels from this time felt stiff and zippy as hell, but wagged under pedaling load like a dog). He said that the difference in handling characteristic supposedly driven by these construction differences is why Mark Cavendish insisted on racing debadged HED Stingers over the sponsor wheels when he raced for Columbia Highroad.

Spoke stretch is also a safety issue, carbon spoked wheels (many with open spoke holes in their hubs) theoretically have a higher risk of de-tensioning a spoke or two over a bump and dislodging a spoke nipple from the hub. By comparison, metal spoked wheels are less likely to catastrophically detension.

For this reason, I chose to go with ICAN aero wheels with CX ray spokes for my most recent wheelset. I probably will go for a carbon spoke wheelset in the future, but the proven metal spoke design seemed like a safe choice for the wheelset I've chosen to ride full-time until I decide to buck up and buy a "racing wheelset"


June 21, 2023, 03:54:46 PM 		1
Re: LTWOO RX hydro sets I haven’t looked too deeply but the crack definitely runs through the shifter bolt.

At this point the shifters are actually the last remaining LTWOO parts from the group-set. I ditched the derailleurs for ultegra and the calipers for z-race a while ago. I’ve managed to source some deeply discounted dura ace R9020 shifters from FB marketplace, so I’m looking forward to installing those soon  :D
June 29, 2023, 10:43:30 PM 		1
Re: 36cm bars? I've had my eye on the Kocevlo handlebar, only reason I haven't gotten it is because the stem is only available up to 110mm and I need 130mm. My friend has bought a set and I gotta say they're quite nice given the low price https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804787569282.html

Airwolf sells them up to 120mm stem: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805079402621.html

Premium-tier options include Farsports F1: https://www.pandapodium.cc/product/farsports-f1-classic-handlebar/
July 02, 2023, 12:33:05 PM 		2
Re: LTWOO RX hydro sets I've done a teardown of my broken LTWOO brifter to see what's inside. I have the part-1 video up right now on youtube. Interesting finds include that the hydraulic reservoir is a modular part that pops right out.

(What's inside a L-TWOO hydraulic lever? Teardown & anatomy of a failure)


I'm currently putting together a video demoing the rebuild and analyzing/explaining the shift mechanism (hopefully dropping this week), but the short of it is that the shift mechanism is pretty much identical in design to Campy Ultrashift (diagram attached). This is a bad thing IMO. Fundamentally, this is a friction shifter. To hold the cable in place, it uses a friction plate with indexing indents pushed up against the de-tensioning ratchet by a couple of spring washers. You adjust the friction with the screw in the back of the shifter. Shifting feels tough because you have to overcome the friction plate in addition to everything else. I also think it's not suitable for off-road use, where a bump can increase the tension on the cable and spontaneously advance the index, causing a mis-shift
August 14, 2023, 10:53:12 PM 		3
Re: LTWOO RX hydro sets
Quote from: Sebastian on August 15, 2023, 12:59:25 AM
It's more or less an exact copy of Campagnolo's Hydro Shifters internally. Having worked on the Campy shifters, I can say that even the modular hydro unit looks identical maybe except for a few minor details. I've been running Ultra Shift in many iterations and it has gotten better every time. The 12sp generation has super light and smooth action. If you can shift it comfortably in the drops very much depends on bar shape and hand size. I have no problem shifting these in the drops.
I've also never had issues with riding these offroad. Campy has been used by quite a few pros in CX back in the rim brake days. With all that said, I dunno what level of quality the LTWOO internals are. Copying stuff is one thing. Doing it well is another.

Thanks for the feedback! I have never worked hands-on with Campy so I've only been able to go off of the material online, which admittedly is sparse, it's good to hear from someone with real-life experience on this.

I guess I'm still on the fence over if this is a "good" indexing design. On one hand (as you illustrate) Campy has a good track record with making it work well, even in off-road applications. On the other hand this friction system design is inherently a zero-sum compromise between shift-action-lightness and indexing security. Meanwhile, Shimano and SRAM's systems use mechanical interference to achieve indexing.
August 15, 2023, 08:54:42 AM 		1
Re: Getting kicked around by LightCarbon, should I dispute with paypal? Alright guys, thanks for talking me off the ledge. I’m not pleased but I’ll wait.
September 01, 2023, 08:28:40 PM 		1
Re: Getting kicked around by LightCarbon, should I dispute with paypal? Alright, after 2 broken promises from Wendy that my frame would be shipped "next week", I followed up once more and was told that the frame was ready but the fork with no rivets was not. So I was given the choice of taking the fork with rivets immediately, or waiting more time for the different fork. I took the former option, and I'm relieved to say frame is shipped and tracking says it's in my country.

So all-in-all, 47 days from invoice-paid to frame-shipped. A datapoint for y'all to have.
September 21, 2023, 03:44:33 PM 		1
Re: LTWOO RX hydro sets
Quote from: michael_pappas on September 19, 2023, 10:46:18 AM
Is there a consensus on what the pull ratio is and if it's compatible with other RDs?

I’ve successfully paired the R9 (11s) with an 11s ultegra rear derailleur
September 21, 2023, 08:49:04 PM 		2
Re: Lightcarbon LCG071-D Build
Quote from: Dunndunn on September 26, 2023, 05:56:30 AM
Hi! Can anyone comment on how long it took from ordering to the frame was shipped? Been two weeks and no shipping info.

47 days for me from payment to tracking #, and then a week shipping to doorstep
September 26, 2023, 11:20:04 AM 		1
Re: Lightcarbon LCG071-D Build Alright so I'm going to update everyone on my build so far:

As I noted in my last comment, shipping was not quick. Initially I had been quoted 15 days to shipping. The next 2 times I had asked for updates, Wendy said the frame would ship "by the end of next week", which was a lie on both occasions. Lesson learned, if you care about the lead time, ask for a quoted lead time BEFORE you pay. I had also ordered the frame with no rivets, but was told I would have to wait ANOTHER week for that one, but I could choose to take the riveted frame immediately, so I went for that. Not ideal but I'll live

Options chosen: 55cm frame, 100mm integrated stem, SP03 seatpost, black paint/no custom paint

Weights:
- frame: 1063g
- fork: 499g
- seatpost: 192g
- stem: 153g

Notes:

Frame: tubes look nice, feels very light, but the quality of the bottom bracket is dogshit. I don't know how this frame passed Hambini's BB-weenie test, because my frame's BB is terrible. HUGE deposit of resin on one of the cups that I had to file down. There's a big gouge/void in the other cup. Internal diameter was something like 40.3-40.8mm in diameter, when it should be a bit closer to 41. I've had to file down the void, and hit the cups with some sandpaper to clean up the surface. I'm using a token ninja thread-together BB, evidently the cups are not aligned because the crank has been binding like crazy to install, and does not spin freely. I'm hoping that most of it is just binding between the bottom bracket bearings and the crank spindle, but I might have to resort to a BBinfinite if the situation does not improve with some use. 

Fork: Chunky and solid. I mean, it weighs half as much as the frame. Thru-axle threads were crusty and bind-ey. As on many budget forks, inside of the steerer is fiberglass.

Seatpost: The tube is very thick and chunky. Easily could be 50g lighter. Painted with opaque gloss black paint. Internal profile is slightly oval. I like the seat binding clamps. This post definitely won't fail on you! Definitely a part I look to upgrade soon.

Stem: Awful awful awful. Stem face bolts and threads are not aligned well so it binds when screwing. Internal diameter of handlebar clamp is slightly smaller than spec so it slightly crushes the handlebar (I may have damaged my handlebar, oh well). Heavy. Why did this need to be carbon?

Hardware & assembly: Stem spacers are split, good. Seatpost clamp face is machined to literally appear like a device for filing/grinding things. Pretty okay for post-security, but this will LITERALLY shred the paint/material off of your seatpost where/near you clamp it. Headset bearings are okay, fitment is spot-on, no notes there, good-job lightcarbon. Everything else is bog-standard solid & cheap parts. Steerer tube compression bung and topcap compressor are heavy steel parts. For assembly, I built up with SRAM Force AXS etap, so very easy to just route the brake hoses, especially since I didn't have an integrated bar. No surprises there, I used a magnetic routing toolkit to help me out.

So, overall verdict? I guess for $660, it's fine. I kind of have regrets about getting this bike instead of a used bike, but that's on me. I've spent so much on this bike it's not really competitive with used bike prices anymore, which is really what motivated my road bike build in the first place. As for the quality--I have questions. This frame has ended up in the workshops of several youtubers lately, who have sung its praises--and my experience definitely does not line up. Is this "Wendy's revenge" for me insistently bugging them about getting my frame shipped? Or is some funny business afoot--did lightcarbon decide to let QC slip with the new popularity of this frame? Who knows.

Anways, wish me luck as I finish this build out and attempt a season of cyclocross on it.
September 26, 2023, 03:40:25 PM 		1