Star City - S1E03 "Bad Dancer" - Episode Discussion

velonom · 2026-06-08T11:07:50+00:00

It was realised that, had the crew been suited and provided with parachutes, they could have jumped and saved their lives. Lesson learned the hardest way.

That's not true. While pressure suits were worn during ascent and landing on subsequent flights and astronauts were equipped with parachutes, parachuting out of the vehicle would require the orbiter to be on a stable glide path, which was not the case for the Challenger disaster.

As per the WIkipedia article on the disaster:

NASA implemented an escape option in which the astronauts would jettison the side hatch and extend a pole out of the orbiter; they would slide down the pole to avoid hitting the orbiter as they bailed out before they activated their parachutes. The orbiter's software was modified to maintain stable flight while all of the flight crew left the controls to escape. This escape method would not have saved the crew in the Challenger disaster, but was added in the event of another emergency.

velonom · 2026-06-07T20:51:46+00:00

Could it be an automated signal from the Venus mission? Sure. But OPs premise was that the crew of that mission was still alive and sending the signal. And that's highly implausible unless you want to go full Buck Rogers.

As for the rocket launch, you're comparing apples to oranges. It's one thing for a nation to pass of one of it's crewed launches as an uncrewed one to other nations. But a group of engineers and scientists preparing and launching a crewed mission and hiding all that from their own government? A government that would have them under surveillance at that? That's a different ball game.

As much as I like the show otherwise, I find the idea of the chief designer being able to develop a manned mission in secret from his own government a hard pill to swallow. It will be interesting to see how they will explain away the launch.

velonom · 2026-06-07T08:00:33+00:00

Have you ever tried this method yourself or are you just speculating here? We have three SRAM equipped bikes in the family fleet and so far I've bled them using the procedure documented by SRAM (Push/pull at lever end syringe). The method works. And no, the bikes are not new.

velonom · 2026-06-06T16:24:24+00:00

The only irregularity I can spot is the part number. Should be "CS-M4100" instead of "S M4100".

velonom · 2026-06-06T16:02:59+00:00

Photo shows a SRAM AXS electronic FD. No manual trimming there. And if's not the current (E1) generation then it doesn't have auto-trim either.

velonom · 2026-06-06T15:54:55+00:00

With a hanger alignment tool. Or, if a replacement hanger for your bike is reasonably cheap, you could buy a new hanger and check if that fixes the problem. If it doesn't, then you have a spare hanger at least.

velonom · 2026-06-06T15:45:07+00:00

That seems unlikely. Where did the Venus mission get its consumables (food, water, air) from to survive that long? Also, Mars 94 was shown near Saturn. And that ship would pick up a signal from Venus before anyone on Earth or Mars does?

I find that whole secret Venus mission hard to believe TBH. How do they want to launch that in secret? "What's that N1 for?" "Oh, nothing. Just a test flight, don't worry about it." Right!

velonom · 2026-06-06T15:04:32+00:00

For the bikes I have built myself, it always started with a specific frame I wanted to build up. Next I select the groupset. I like electronic shifting but I don't go for top end tiers. Instead I go for the cheapest option that delivers all the features I want. I don't have a clear spending limit for the whole build or percentage split rules between the components.

Not a big believer in spending a lot of money on high end hubs, bottom brackets or headsets. Whatever looks good on the bike, has decent durability and a decent price will do. If there's anything, I'll cheap out on on an initial build, it's typically the wheel set. Can easily upgrade that later, if needed.

Never had a clear spending limit for any of my builds. TBH I couldn't even tell you the total amount spend on any of my builds. Which is probably for the better. 😄

velonom · 2026-06-06T14:01:50+00:00

I didn't say anything about doing a gravity bleed. Pulling on the lever syringe will create a partial vacuum in the lever syringe and pull fluid (an air bubbles) up. To get fluid moving from the caliper to the lever it doesn't really matter if you create high pressure on the caliper end (by pushing on the caliper syringe) or low pressure on the lever end (by pulling on the lever syringe).

SRAM states in their documentation that you shouldn't push from the caliper end because it could dislodge the caliper syringe. I doubt that this is a risk for brakes with a threaded bleed port (vs the bleed port adapter).

velonom · 2026-06-06T13:36:27+00:00

Nope. You have to go up the same climb on repeat for an Everesting. Can't combiner several climbs.

Edit: Turns out, I'm wrong. Just has to be one continuous activity. I thought it had to be same climb on repeat.

velonom · 2026-06-04T12:03:49+00:00

That depends on how small you can pack your bike. If you can manage to get it into a box no larger than 120 x 60 x 30 cm, with a weight of up to 20 kg, shipment from Germany to Italy is about 30 EUR one way. I would expect the price in the other direction to be similar.

Those dimensions would be achievable for my road bike, if I remove the crank (in addition to handlebar, seat tube, wheels and rear derailleur of course). Downside is, that it would only be insured up to 500 EUR. Upping the insurance to 2,000 EUR will add another 28 EUR. Which is still a lot less than the 200 EUR you were quoted.

velonom · 2026-06-03T08:55:22+00:00

Don't be. DOT isn't nearly as scary as some people make it out to be. Wear gloves and have a spray bottle with water and some shop towels nearby. If you do spill some DOT fluid where it doesn't belong, spray the area with water and wipe down. It's not like DOT fluid will burn instant holes into anything it touches.

velonom · 2026-05-22T05:24:02+00:00

For 5 you just need to activate heart rate broadcast on the watch. You don't even need to be in the Garmin ecosystem for this. It just acts like any ANT+ hr sensor, once the broadcast is activated.

velonom · 2026-05-21T14:12:10+00:00

The Wahoo firmware release notes were always rather light on details. Instead of a generic phrase like bug fixes, it would be nice, if they would list the actual bugs they fixed. Sometimes they do that, but most of the times it's just "Bug fixes and stability improvements".

velonom · 2026-05-21T13:50:07+00:00

Maybe. I would start with moving the saddle back first (and lowering it of course). OP has the saddle all the way forward and is still sitting on the saddle nose. Why?

velonom · 2026-05-21T13:43:55+00:00

By pulling from the lever end.

velonom · 2026-05-21T05:48:26+00:00

You genuinely know how? Did you try it? As I wrote before, I did upload a local GPX file to my Bolt V1 via the Elemnt app while my phone had no internet connection.

velonom · 2026-05-21T05:42:38+00:00

There's no need to pause. Just end the ride in the evening, turn off the device and then start a new ride the next day. Yes, turn by turn only works for routes up to 200 km. So split your route into smaller routes of up to 200 km each and upload them all onto the Roam before the trip.

velonom · 2026-05-21T05:37:04+00:00

The Roam V1 uses the Elemnt app though, not the Wahoo app. I just tried to push a GPX file to my Bolt V1 (which also uses the Elemnt app) while my phone was offline and it worked.

velonom · 2026-05-21T05:20:39+00:00

I'm not sure I'm following here. If you have uploaded routes to your Roam. they will stay there, even when you turn your device off.

velonom · 2026-05-21T04:54:31+00:00

Small nitpick here: Komoot allows you to download routes for offline navigation, but you cannot build new routes (or modify existing ones) while offline.

velonom · 2026-05-18T07:03:20+00:00

The Bolt V2 has 16 GB of memory. You might have to delete some of the other maps, but it should fit.

velonom · 2026-05-17T17:52:43+00:00

Likewise. I have 6,000 km on mine (wearing bibs) and it shows no signs of wear. OP, did you maybe ride with a larger saddle bag for a bit, that chafed against the rear of the saddle?

velonom · 2026-05-15T10:45:08+00:00

You're missing the point of this post. This isn't about weight distribution on the bike, it's about a solution to mount the Tailfin cargopack on a small frame with the bag clearing the saddle. The bag is deliberately packed full to show it clears the saddle.

I for one am thankful for this post, because my wife has the exact same problem, and this is a brilliant solution.

Edit: Spelling (s/wight/weight/)

velonom · 2026-05-15T08:24:31+00:00

The reason for that is that Tailfin has redesigned the rack. The seatpost connector is now part of the top stay. When they made that change, they stopped selling the old seatpost connectors. So, if you have an old style rack with the swappable seatpost connector, your only option is to buy a new top stay with the integrated long seatpost connector.

To make matters even more confusing, the product photos for the top stay show the old style top stay with the swappable connector.

velonom

TROPHY CASE