Moral: Don’t follow someone unless you are sure they know what they are talking about. Be thoughtful, respectful, and open-minded. Then make up your own mind.

My opinion on round versus eliptical chainrings is simply “Use whatever works best for you”. I know a bit about ergonomics and that methodology is pretty much my mantra. Shoot, someday I’m going to build a bike with a microshift grip shifter for the front and a trigger shifter for the rear. Why? Because I think that it would work better for me.

I plan to build a single speed/fixed gear training/commuting bike with some NOS biopace and try it out myself….I hope it will help me better balance climbing ability and gearing for speed.

I read Sheldons’ experiences, and learned from them, and will try it for myself. I learned nothing from the asshat Jarvitron.

Peace and love… and if you don’t like peace and love, then you just need more of it!

It was novel, interesting, conceptually daring. Commercially it was not quite what it could have been or what the designers might have expected – in thanks to a numerous small and some larger accidents causing the final demise of the ‘first and only’ supersonic jetliner.

I cannot say for sure if biopace was properly researched and tested – but it’s line of thought is not completely nonsensical. There are many mechanical and bio-mechanical ways of motion that use a biopace-like transfer of energy (in many many applications).

Right. Eh. That was it. Concorde, Biopace. And all.

I do have severe knee problems now – 14 years later – but I doubt they are the issue of a few days of biopace. Riding overweighed, oversized bikes for years in my youth or just a stupid wrong step during house-moving might have.

I found Jarvitron’s initial posting quite well done – I do appreciate a diss with humour. The responses were pretty good as well, pro’s and con’s all over the place.

I dont quite understand what frustrated 10-year old took over his account and starting posting the low grade nonsense and swearing. But hey, perhaps the initial posting was a lot more serious than I thought.

Jarv, take it easy. Take a rest. Enjoy the discussion, contribute a bit – or if you dont have anything to contribute, just ignore us. You started this crap, live with it ;)

Dread Pirate..dead on about the Gasbag…

I did my first ever 100-mile ride 3 days ago. Solo, and with about 20 miles of harsh dirt road in the middle. My taint is recovering, but my right knee is still a bit whacked. Yes, my touring bike has Biopace rings – I built it up not long ago using parts off a nice barn-find ’80s road bike that didn’t fit me. Most of my riding (over the last 20 years or so) has been on mountain bikes with round rings.

So, I’m not sure whether my knee is tweaked because I rode further than I’m used to, because I was too lazy to spin properly for the last 30 miles, because my cleat position was a bit off, because my shoes are too flexible and a tad too small, because I have genetically bad knees, or because of the evils of Biopace. All of these are likely contributing factors.

I’m a Biopace agnostic.

What I take exception to is your assessment of the Titanic. Having written a thesis on the damaged stability of ships for my Naval Architecture degree (albeit some 15 years ago), I’m better qualified in this field than I am in egg-shaped chain rings.

The Titanic was the first ship designed to even consider surviving a ruptured hull. Prior to that, it was a certainty – if you put a hole in the side, the ship was going to the bottom of the ocean unless you could pump the water out faster than it came in.

The Titanic raised the bar, and introduced the design philosophy that is still in use today. They divided the hull into watertight compartments, such that the ship would stay afloat with any _two_ compartments punctured. A quantum leap in thinking.

“Unsinkable” was all puff. Made up by the marketeering department, for use by the magazine editors of the day. It would certainly sink if three compartments flooded. They holed five (or six, depending on source).

Nearly 100 years later, we understand the fracture mechanics of cold steel better, and we’re better able to calculate the survivability of damaged vessels. So we do.

Current design rules take into account the stability of every possible flooding combination and the probability of damage causing that damage state. Compartments are optimised based on these results. If they had attempted such calculations (by hand) when designing Titanic, they’d still be working today.

Titanic sank because it hit an iceberg, not because it was a badly designed vessel. Any other ship afloat at the time would have sunk. It was the safest ship of its day, and it insults the designers to compare it with Biopace chainrings.

I ride a Cannondale SR400, its ok pretty solid. As I am new to cycling and live in Tucson the roads suck. So I am on Mavic Open pros , and currently doing research about Bio-Pace.

I ride on the shimano biopace. At first I had absolutely no idea what it was. It wasn’t until people started pointing it out that I noticed it. I have heard stuff from; it is horrible, and why do I ride on it, and also from some old cyclists saying they work great.

After close to ONLY one year of riding on the bio pace, I have not experienced any knee problems of any sort ( Which I understand I have only been riding it for one year; not long enough to clearly say that), I did the Tour De Tucson last month on it, and I have also put on over 500 miles on the crank alone. When I did the tour (I only did the 66 mile because I had a broken hand in a cast) I placed 148 out of 1225 riders and averaged at 18.1 mph. It was my first tour, and I was pretty pleased with my placings. One thing I noticed, is going up hill, I was absolutely demolishing people. It happened every down stroke, I would literally jump ahead with each stroke.

Now all that being said this obviously does not support one side or the other. This is simply my experience so far with my bio pace crank. Now I absolutely love it, and I look for it every where. Honestly, when I go into bike shops and ask for used bio, they laugh at me, and tell me how bad it is. I ALWAYS in return ask if they have ever ridden it. I typically get the same reply. No, or my friend once had one.

As far as this debate goes as I am still trying to come to a conclusion of all this. But honestly Jarvitron, reading your posts has made me question this further. Why is it some people get so heated about the bio pace? Its a fucking crank on my bike? if you don’t like it, thats fine. I don’t like rings now, and I can clearly distinguish the difference. But thats not going to make me go on the internet and start a web fight (‘debate’ as you called it) about this topic. Now if you wanted to inform me this is horrible for my legs and that I really shouldn’t be riding it. I could take that and reconsider everything. But with your arguments of ;

“I used to suspect that all the supporters of Biopace are self obsessed
dickbags who write passive aggressive comments on blog posts”

I really can’t take you seriously at all. Who is the self obsessed all knowing dick bag now on this blog post?

Yes I am trying to get to the bottom of this bio-pace debate, even if that means reading through stupid comment pages and having to see people like you post on these.

Why is it you hate bio pace so much? I could see if you we’re stuck riding it or something and it just pissed you the fuck off. But shit, get over it dude.

Jarvitron, if you do reply to my post. I hope the response is not something along the lines of you wanting me to eat corn out of your ass, with my penis cheese. Or whatever the fuck you would consider some one like me, a (SO FAR) supporter of bio pace, actually taking opinions of wether I should be riding it.

see: Dvorak

“Officially disavowed by the people who made it: Oh really?” – Show me the links.
“Universally accepted as failures.” – ORLY?
“Moderate fowardthink without any real analysis.” – What’s your analysis revealed there Einstein?
“Maths without fizzix.” – Way to get all ghetto, again, no substance.

On top of that, you insulted and got a response from Sheldon Brown, a true saint to the cycling industry. God rest his soul, it’s great that he didn’t take you too seriously, but I triple dog dare you to put your real name and face on senseless opinions like that. It’s like insulting Mother Teresa’s peace efforts. “Wah wah wah, Biopace sucked!” Truly groundbreaking work, jackass.