Friday, January 04, 2008

The Raptor Refined

Paul continues to tweak his new Optima Raptor:
  • adding some bling to the wheels
  • dropping the chain
  • Radical Designs seat bags

3 comments:

Steeker said...

that Raptor is beautiful bike ! but I have my soft spot for the Challenge Jester

Lee said...

I see in his comments he replaced his idlers with lengths of chaintube. I always thought the chaintube caused more friction/ resistance than idlers, no? I still love the bike though!

Vik said...

Used properly chain tubes and idlers don't add significant amounts of friction on a drive train.

Idlers are used to change the angle of the chain. As long as they don't flex on their posts much and they are rotating freely this doesn't add much drag to the system.

Chain tubes are used to keep a chain from swinging and protect the bike and rider from the chain. As long as you don't try and use a chain tube to change the angle of the chain there is very little friction due to a teflon chain tube. If you try and use a chain tube to bend a chain instead of an idler I think you'll have drag issues, but that would be a bad design.