dan i don't see this as a disagreement, but more like an agreement. p.s. i think if this thread continues, we should at least change the subject header. e-RICHIE Richard Sachs Cycles No.9, North Main Street Chester, CT 06412 USA http://www.richardsachs.com
On Wed, 10 Jul 2002 08:56:37 -0400 "Daniel Artley" <dartley@co.ba.md.us>
writes:
> I hate to disagree with Richard since I have owned one of his bikes
> for almost 24 years...
>
> I have had the Sachs shimmy on me twice, both times pretty scary,
> but over so quickly it didn't seem to phase my riding. Both times I
> was way too fast for the turns. The first a bit more of a hairpin
> than I thought at about 43 mph in the mountains of Western Maryland.
> The head tube started to oscillate as I just kind of reeled the
> bike in at the edge of the road and didn't crash into the boulder
> filled ditch on the outside of the turn. The second, on a local
> ride with my wife hot dogging it on a road with a steep series of
> hills with tighter and tighter curves with a really tight hairpin at
> the bottom. I nailed it at the top of the hill and overdid the drop
> turn just before the hairpin. I held it up with the front of the
> bike oscillating, but blew the front tire midway through the front
> turn. I did ride it down, but it was a big hole. I had to use a
> dollar bill on the tire and my swiss army knife to file the burr on
> the rim to get home. Both of these have happened within the last
> three years or so, and at first I attributed it to the frame maybe
> getting old. Its got a lotta miles. And its a touring bike. But
> then I was overweight and I was just a little too fast for the
> turns. It still rides soo much better than any of my other bikes.
>
> ...I have always liked to take twisty downhills as close to the
> limit as I can. One bike I used to own, a Peugeot PX-10, would
> develop a shimmy at the bottom most of a bunch of S turns just above
> Loch Raven Dam at the reservoir just north of Baltimore. The turn
> was reverse banked and a little wider than the rest, but I was
> usually a little over 30 mph by then. This shimmy was more of a
> violent harmonic shake that could only be cured by backing off speed,
> and it only seemed to happen there. The bike and I were eventually
> involved in an accident (unrelated) which resulted in the head tube
> being bent back just a little. A new chrome PX-10 fork and slightly
> bent top and down tubes, and that bike ended up handling better than
> new. I never had the shimmy or shake again.
>
> Dan Artley, still trying to convince my brother to let me have the
> bike back, in Baltimore Maryland
>
>
> ... i think that notion of 'straighter' frames
> shimming more frequently than crooked frames is bullshit.
> ya' know what i think the real issue is? some people don't
> have balls. they don't know how to go down a hill without freezing
> up. period. i MEAN, do you ever here of guys descending in
> the pyrenees, in the pro ranks, on factory built bicycles...do you
> ever hear about these guys losing it at 62mph? no! because they
> have honed their bicycle handling skills. for the rest of us, when
> it comes to the issue of shimmy, and descending speeds, and the
> related issues, i say it's all pilot error....
>
> e-RICHIE
> Richard Sachs Cycles
> No.9, North Main Street
> Chester, CT 06412 USA
> http://www.richardsachs.com