Thorn Cycles Forum
Community => Muppets Threads! (And Anything Else) => Topic started by: jags on August 24, 2017, 11:10:33 am
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Is it not about time Thorn updated there bikes.like better p aint choices carbon drive belt .just looking at a video the other day Darren Alf biketouringpro.but yeah he has a new custom b i ke from co motion really class machine .so why doesnt thorn give the customer a choice.there great bike thorn but man are they stuck in a rut .
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Updated colours for Audax this Month!
Updated colours for Club Tour last year or so.
John
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I'm sure the Rohloff boys would love a choice of carbon belt ,seems to make for a silent ride and maintenance free .custom paint job would also be nice.
i'm as happy as a pig in honey ;) with my black audax rides like a dream.
anto.
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That's not the smartest thing I ever heard you say, Anto. Running after fashion with annual, and then seasonal, model changes, is the surest road to ruin for an established small company known to make solid products by a loyal following. And in your next post you tell us in almost as many words that you won't buy a new Audax just because there's a new colour (I wouldn't either, if I had your Audax, but that's not the point).
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Andre i like a bit of color in my life every now and again sure no harm in that :)
buy yeah there great bikes for sure hard to fault them and yip i love me Audax but had to give it bit of bling.
oh i'd safely say i said a lot worse that this on the forum, i though by this stage i'd be banned from ever posting again ;D ;D
anto.
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Bling rules! I'm only sorry the Chinese LED thingy I bought, to spell "Stay clear, you moton*!" in the spokes as the wheel revolves, turned out to be a bad speller and instead read, "Up the cops".
*Nope, that's not a misspelling, it's a compound word of great utility to cyclists.
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Then again, we could turn "Up the cops" around with just adding a wee apostrophe: "Up the cops' "
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You fellows will get me into trouble.
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I'm sure the Rohloff boys would love a choice of carbon belt ,seems to make for a silent ride and maintenance free .custom paint job would also be nice.
i'm as happy as a pig in honey ;) with my black audax rides like a dream.
anto.
The last time that I looked Andy Blance was not in favour of the belt drive!
Mike
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I'm sure the Rohloff boys would love a choice of carbon belt ,seems to make for a silent ride and maintenance free .custom paint job would also be nice.
i'm as happy as a pig in honey ;) with my black audax rides like a dream.
anto.
The last time that I looked Andy Blance was not in favour of the belt drive
Mike
yea but Thorn do make U turns on policy ;) they now offer several disc forks after saying they never would
"We do not (and will not) fit disc brakes to resilient steel forks. The leverage of the caliper on the rotor can pry the wheel from its dropout. A through axle dropout (and hub) would prevent this but, to fit one, we would have to use very large diameter blades; these would then be horribly uncomfortable to ride, there is enough rubbish on the market without us adding to it!"
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Some years ago my husband contacted Thorn to see if they would do a bike with a Rohloff + disc brake on the back and a caliper on the front, as he wanted the better back brake combined with the comfort of a standard fork. Their negative reply was condescending to the point of rudeness.
He is now building up his order for just such a bike.....but it won't be a Mercury from Thorn! ::)
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sure a change is as good as a rest .
few more color choice's would't go a miss.
mind you i wouldn't chance a thing on my black audax and the build quality is class.if i could afford one of those secret motors i'd be a happy camper. ;D
jags.
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You see a number of bikes now with a kick stand bolted onto the rear frame as standard, I have a Pletscher one. Again Thorn don't advise this but so far there have been no adverse effects on my frames. Maybe I'm just lucky ?
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Thorn have done a number of U turns over the past few years. They stick their necks out a bit by saying that they will never do something ie disc mounts on front forks, then change their minds. No reason why a gates belt drive cannot be an option and the same with a kickstand. Nearly every continental frame has one.
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I view the split rear triangle for the Gates Drive with suspicion, regardless of how many fashion victims have adopted it; but then I can remember when we did finite element analysis the hard way for a whole triangulated space frame racing car -- on slide rules, bay by bay. A bicycle, mainly in two dimensions, and by necessity and tradition as light as the designer can make it without imperiling other functions (and often a bit lighter, though we don't see that much at the touring end of the market), just doesn't strike me as a natural candidate for splits, especially that near the major torque-points of power input and braking (especially with a disc attached to the hub).
As for the kick stand Energyman mentions, I've had one on every bike since I switched to Continental bikes. Here I just don't see the objection of old-fashioned designers to a piece of very convenient kit that can be attached at a strong point on the bike with, at most, the addition of a lightweight, short stiffening brace between the chain stay and the seat stay. On my favorite German bike the brace has been laser-cut from the same steel as the tubes but flat, as a quarter-circle with holes in it, which is decorative, and the brace serves the double purpose of bracing against disc brake forces as well. The only other fitting on OEM stand-fitted frames is a flat tab of thicker metal brazed, soldered or welded onto the non-drive side chain stay to bolt the kickstand onto, to avoid clamping it onto the chain stay, with resulting paint damage. As far as I know, ESGE/Pletscher stands come with two half-round spacers, one convex and one concave, to let you angle the thing on the flat tab; they're a nuisance to adjust, and I fixed mine permanently by a locknut behind the threaded tab so that I could set them once and then forget about the stand. If anyone cares, an ESGE stand is just about indestructible; I've never managed to break one.
I find the stand very convenient; I wouldn't want to do without it; I cringe every time pedal pals lean their bikes up against the hawthorne hedges, very common here, because they don't have kickstands.
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Andre i'd be looking for the hawthorne bush to be honest ::)
nothing wrong with bike stands they work well my friend bikepacker has one on his bob jackson no problem Koga has them on there bikes but im a weight weeney ,i guess it's riding lightweight bikes all my life.
anto.
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Andre i'd be looking for the hawthorne bush to be honest ::)
nothing wrong with bike stands they work well my friend bikepacker has one on his bob jackson no problem Koga has them on there bikes but im a weight weeney ,i guess it's riding lightweight bikes all my life.
anto.
I'm no weight weenie but I also haven't really seen the need for a stand on my thorn. There always seems to be a wall or tree around here when you need it. I suppose if I had one I'd probably use it all the time. I do use a stand on my folder when scooting around the market as stall holders get nervous about you resting against their canopies.
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Some years ago my husband contacted Thorn to see if they would do a bike with a Rohloff + disc brake on the back and a caliper on the front, as he wanted the better back brake combined with the comfort of a standard fork. Their negative reply was condescending to the point of rudeness.
He is now building up his order for just such a bike.....but it won't be a Mercury from Thorn! ::)
I find the rear Avid cable disc brake on my Mercury very ordinary and would have been quite happy with a V brake on the rear as well as the front.
Other than that the Mercury is a great bike!
Mike
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I'm not surprised Thorn changed their mind over front disc's as it has become a reliable system, and personally refuse to buy a bike if it doesn't have full disc's, and now own both the Club Tour and the Mercury.
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Some years ago my husband contacted Thorn to see if they would do a bike with a Rohloff + disc brake on the back and a caliper on the front, as he wanted the better back brake combined with the comfort of a standard fork. Their negative reply was condescending to the point of rudeness.
He is now building up his order for just such a bike.....but it won't be a Mercury from Thorn! ::)
I find the rear Avid cable disc brake on my Mercury very ordinary and would have been quite happy with a V brake on the rear as well as the front.
Other than that the Mercury is a great bike!
Mike
He wanted a disc brake on the back because he was wearing through his rear rim each year, the result of commuting all year round including on dirty, gritted winter roads. He is currently using a Genesis Croix de Fer (now about 8 years old) and is still on the original rims, but finds the stiff straight front fork quite uncomfortable on our poor surfaces.
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I built up a new bike from the frame this past spring from a (non-Thorn) Titanium frame that did not have a fork included. The frame was disc only, so I obviously had to put a disc on the back. For the front, instead of buying the recommended fork for $300 USD I planned to use a fork that I already owned that was a rim brake only type of fork.
The result is a touring bike that is V brake front, disc rear. I find that the rim brake on front outperforms the rear disc when I really have to rapidly decelerate, but if it is just slowing down slightly the two brakes are comparable. Am using Koolstop Salmon pads on front with a non-CSS rim, the rear brake is a TRP Spyre with stock pads, stock rotor, and compression-less cable housing. But, in the wet (rain) I find that I prefer the disc over the rim brake.
Before you tell my that I am judging my brakes wrong because the front is always better, I find it hard to apply enough disc brake to make the rear wheel lockup and skid. I did run in the rear disc brake when new in accordance with the manufacturers recommendations.
Regarding wearing out rims, I am quite pleased with the CSS impregnation on the rims on my Nomad. The braking is less effective than when new, about the same as most non-CSS rims I use. But if my CSS rims get to the point that others have complained about with limited stopping capability, instead of following the instructions to only use CSS pads, I will switch to softer pads to see if that resolves the issue.
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He wanted a disc brake on the back because he was wearing through his rear rim each year, the result of commuting all year round including on dirty, gritted winter roads.
With decent brake pads and cables I find the rim brakes on my bikes are powerful enough to lock the wheels in the rain, even on my Bromptons, so I don't really need any increase in braking power.
Rim wear is adequate for me in most cases, with two exceptions:
- the 16" rims on my Bromptons, which wear quickly with winter commuting.
- the 26" rims I used for my 2011 Spain trip. These were relatively light Mavic rims, available quickly from my LBS, but not really the best choice for loaded touring in mountainous areas. So I took the advice of SJS cycles and had Andra 30 CSS rims fitted on my Raven Tour.
Not yet used disc brakes on a bicycle, but from my experience using drum, coaster and roller brakes I reckon a rear disc brake would also keep the chain cleaner than a rim brake (not an issue with a Chainglider). Disc brakes would also eliminate rim heating on long descents, but I suppose this problem is replaced by brake fade when the disc gets hot.
I can see the argument for not using a disc on the front - with a disc all the braking force is concentrated close to the fork end and on one side, so the fork can't be made as flexible.