Favorite discontinued cycling product

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by MikeD

How good was/is the altitude gain function? I haven't seen a bike computer, including the GPS enabled ones, come close to the Avocet 50's accuracy for this. I still have two (I believe) functional Avocet 50s but the mounts/wiring failed and I switched to Garmin Edge computers.

How did you determine that the Avocet 50 is accurate? Determining altitude gain is not as easy as it sounds due to the "coastline paradox" (this has been discussed in previous threads).

In particular, the Avocet 50's hysteresis function was crude, and can cause many changes in altitude to be ignored. Specifically, the Avocet 50 will not accumulate any altitude gain of less than 30 feet. As an extreme example, if you rode a route that was a like a sawtooth with a sequence of many hills that were 25 feet tall, each with a grade of 20% grade, the Avocet would not accumulate any climbing at all. The Avocet 50 was probably fine if all climbs on the route were large, but it may not work as well on routes with many small undulations.

[makoti]

Originally Posted by dsimon

Road bike action magazine

Bicycle Guide, if we are talking publications. I still have a few I pull out a read if I'm feeling like the bike isn't as fun anymore

[merckxman]

I still use mine, alternating with rollers during Winter. The UP1 is excellent.

Originally Posted by christian

What's your favorite discontinued cycling product?

Mine might be the 1up USA CPR-A2000 trainer.

I hadn't used mine in a while, but wanted to do a FTP test, so pulled it out of the basement last night. Greased the balls, mounted the bike up, and it's just as smooth and quiet and perfect as it ever was. Just a great product. Light, well-engineered, user-serviceable. I know smart trainers are all the rage, and surely it didn't make sense to continue it... but boy, it is a great trainer.

[ColonelJLloyd]

Ritchey EVOmax handlebars
Ibex bibs

[tellyho]

Originally Posted by schwa86

The Nashbar catalog arriving in the mail?

RIP Nashbar in general. Also Dan's Comp, former home of the $0.50 double butted spoke and nipple. All gobbled up by A Main.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by tellyho

RIP Nashbar in general. Also Dan's Comp, former home of the $0.50 double butted spoke and nipple. All gobbled up by A Main.

In my dealings with A Main, they appear to be a reliable and reputable online retailer. But they no longer carry Nashbar branded products, and I miss a lot of those of the low-cost/high-value, and often somewhat funky Nashbar branded products.

[edgerat]

A Main is great.

[christian]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

In particular, the Avocet 50's hysteresis function was crude, and can cause many changes in altitude to be ignored. Specifically, the Avocet 50 will not accumulate any altitude gain of less than 30 feet. As an extreme example, if you rode a route that was a like a sawtooth with a sequence of many hills that were 25 feet tall, each with a grade of 20% grade, the Avocet would not accumulate any climbing at all.

That was a design decision and part of Jobst's/Avocet's patent. Jobst believed that those were not really hilly rides.

I quote:

From: jbrandt@hpl.hp.com (Jobst Brandt)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: cycle computer
Date: 21 Feb 2000 23:41:33 GMT

The AVO50 makes use of a patented accumulator that is essential for
reliable climb accumulation in that it does not record bumps in the
road that are less than 10 meters (RR overpasses) while recording
continuous climbs entirely.

[zennmotion]

Originally Posted by schwa86

The Nashbar catalog arriving in the mail?

I spent way more time ogling the '70s "Bike Warehouse" catalogs than my math homework BITD...

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by christian

That was a design decision and part of Jobst's/Avocet's patent. Jobst believed that those were not really hilly rides.

I quote:

From: jbrandt@hpl.hp.com (Jobst Brandt)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: cycle computer
Date: 21 Feb 2000 23:41:33 GMT

The AVO50 makes use of a patented accumulator that is essential for
reliable climb accumulation in that it does not record bumps in the
road that are less than 10 meters (RR overpasses) while recording
continuous climbs entirely.

Right. In order to accumulate climbing, you have to determine what a "climb" is. Apparantly to Jobst, an overpass was not a 'climb', although in some places, overpasses are the biggest climbs around. By the way, the 30ft/10m hysteresis band is also in the Avocet 50 user manual:

http://www.avocet.com/instrpdfs/50Eng.pdf

Most modern computers will accumulate climbing in smaller increments than the Avocet 50.

Both Garmin and Wahoo now have climbing features, in which they detect climbs coming up and show you climb data before and during the climb, including total ascent and distance, remaining ascent and distance, and time climbing. They each use different criteria to determine what is a "climb", and may determine that an ascent of as little as 12m is a "climb" if it has at least a 3% average grade.

support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=KKRLD2Fo6MAlCXOzUZb1e9
https://support.wahoofitness.com/hc/...egments-ELEMNT

Avocet also produced a hiking/skiing watch called the Vertech. In skiing mode, it would accumulate altitude descended, and also count ski runs. To count ski runs, it would increment the count after a 50 m altitude gain followed by a 50 m altitude loss. There are some very small ski hills where this would not count any runs at all.

[kestrel58]

Oh man, I loved that Vertech watch for alpine skiing! Gave one to my dad Dad but he wouldn't figure out how the functions worked so gave it back.
I used both for at least 10-15 years because the battery would die in 1.5 ski seasons.

[nspace]

Chris King singlespeed cogs.

...and a bunch of other CK spare parts which was the reason I bought CK hubs in the first place. Never again.

[christian]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

Apparantly to Jobst, an overpass was not a 'climb', although in some places, overpasses are the biggest climbs around.

Oh I know... I live in Chicago!

My commute to the office is 7.94 miles and (according to Garmin) 39 feet of climbing. I think that 17 feet of that is the climb over the Chicago River on the bridge on Wells, and the other 22 feet is (maybe?) partially climbing up the underpass under North and then just random noise.

So I think Garmin overcounts if Avocet undercounts. De gustibus non disputandum est.

[OtayBW]

Another one:
Modolo Curvissima bar. Short reach and drop with a slight forward sweep on the tops. I have two of these on a couple of bikes. YMMV...

[glepore]

Lugged Colnagos.