I propose a survey of the best polo frame / bike / part everyone know / think it is. This could be very helpful for everyone who wants to buy component to build a new polo bike.
best polo bike/frame/parts survey
Thu, 03/05/2012 - 12:54pm
#1
best polo bike/frame/parts survey
I like my token freewheel and my paul lever.
A light frame really made a difference to me. I'm not counting grams yet but at the moment I'm happy with alumium.
Narrow(ish) bars - Moving from a 68cm riser bar to a 58cm flat bar made the most difference to me. I found it allowed much more room to swing the mallet and also allowed me to get much closer to the ball when against the wall or trying to take the ball from another player.
Dual brakes - Ability to stop rapidly is clearly an advantage, it also stops you eating tyres. I did miss the ability to just slide the back end round when racing back to goal but then I only played a couple of games with that set-up so I might have worked out the F/R weighting to do it :-(
Single chainring or bash guard - stops you eating you legs and reduces possible injury for other players. Personally I think this should be part of the rules for all bikes on a court.
PROTECTION - Whilst not a bike it's all part of the game. I am biassed on this one but the nicest bike in the poloverse is worth nothing to you if you're sat at home nursing broken bits. A set of elbow guards and a wrist guard would have saved me at least two months off the bike.
Most of the other aspects are really a matter of personal choice. I can see fixed gear working for some, same with 700c over 26".
There's an out of date list here: http://www.lfgss.com/thread39478.html
All well off trend now.
Listing frames that have no brake mounts like the Scissor makes me wonder about that list.
External BB cranks (e.g. Shimano Hollowtech 2) are full of win, although getting the right chainline can be interesting. Road versions are 5mm narrower, so may give better results but will not have any adjustability, whereas MTB ones come with spacers for 68mm shells, giving you some adjustment. Road cranks also tend to use 110mm bcd 5-bolt chainrings, which starts at 34 teeth. I don't recommend using the granny ring of any crank for SS/fixed as it's harder to get a decent thick chainring and the chainline will be way out if you aren't using a cassette hub with spacers.
CSB.
What do you see as being the win factors with them over a conventional JIS cartridge unit where you can get a range of widths to deal with chainline? Do you really find them to be that much stiffer?
There is pretty much one tool to do any external BB and there is only one crank-axle interface to worry about. No need for a crank puller. Bigger bearings in the BB so they'll stay smoother for longer.
BB 30 uses a similar crank but the cartridge bearings go straight into they frame, held with circlips rather than using screw-in carriers.
Shimano BB tool is the same as the one for Tange, Sugino, ISIS and pretty much all the other cartridge BB's. You do need the install tool with H2 to tension them. Crank pullers are not needed if you use self extracting bolts, although personally I took the hit 25 years ago and bought a Dura Ace one which is my all time fave bit of bike kit.
The bigger bearings I can see, although you do have the disadvantage that the faces of the BB have to be parallel which means they have to be faced. They are also far more exposed than those in a cartridge BB. If you read the MTB reports Shimano bearings seem to be packed with crap grease, I've seen a few reports of failures within 500 miles of use.
The big argument I read was stiffness at the BB which I can see even with my limited engineering experience, however in many cases this moves the flex to the frame which is one of the reasons Canondale released BB30, it gives them a larger shell to better dissipate the loading into the rest of the frame, it also gives the bearing alignment a hand.
I have found external BBs to wear out way faster than a standard UN52 or similar, on my commuter i have had the same sugino BB for about 3 years, while i used an external bb for polo i had to replace it twice in a year.
im using push fit BMX BB with profiles now, my favorite cranks for polo as there strong, have microdrive and you can adjust chain line really easy with the axle spacers. Its the same principal as integrated headset which I like too, why have to screw or hammer cups into you frame to hold bearings when your frame can just hold them itself
Integrated headsets offer nothing other than lower cost of production for bike makers. The whole thing with cups is that when you trash the race you can replace it. At least that's what Chris King has to say on them and I'm inclined to agree with him:
http://chrisking.com/files/pdfs/Int20HeadsetsExplained.pdf (Warning PDF link!)
Nowt wrong with my intergrated, 1great thing is no fucking about with different races for random headsets, s'all 45/45 bearings, so same crown race.
Also lower cost for bike makers means lower cost for bike byers.
Did you read the PDF link with the mechanical arguments? King really does hate them. Long term it will impact on the availability of decent second hand frames which increases the price of entry and decreases the eco friendly side of bike recycling.
They do work, it's just that like a lot of things in cycling innovation in that much of it is driven by the interests of large manufacturers than actual cyclists.
I know king hates them, but he does make expensive headsets.
Chris King is a joke, the real reason he hates them is that no one will buy his overpriced headsets anymore
I still want one.
that PDF was like a try and make a point but dont really make point and no one is having any problems with them anyway
Agree on King being overpriced! Also interesting that he adopted the split ring from Cane Creek as soon as the patent expired. Personally love the needle bearing FSA range.
Sorry if I came across as negative in my last couple of posts, it's just that I've seen issues with both BB and Integrated headsets. FWIW I think the polo scene has a lot to draw from the experiences of BMX and the bomb proof design ethos.
+1 profiles.. Like the wider Q factor? More stability is good...
Not enough gussets.