Looking at an old CroMo bike up the road. I’ve never seen a cassette this small. Were these made for hilly areas?
by Imnothere1980
Looking at an old CroMo bike up the road. I’ve never seen a cassette this small. Were these made for hilly areas?
by Imnothere1980
10 Comments
It used to be the way they rode, pushing big gears. The high RPM revolution started with Greg Lemond and then was taken up by a certain infamous Texan. Now smaller gears and high rpm are the norm in climbs.
ETA I should have said ‘we.’ When I was a junior, I did tons of climbing and my small gear was a 42 x 21. Now it’s a 36 x 27 or 39 x 29, depending on the bike. The old me would be ashamed lol.
Thats the way we rolled back in the 80s, 13-18 straight through freewheel and 52/42 chainrings. 🙂
Because we were strong back then, and had knees.
For a long time they had only 5 gears in the back. Racing bikes shifted to 6 gears in the back during late 1970’s, and then to 7 gears during 1980’s.
In any case, if you have fewer gears than on modern bikes, you need to compromise on SOMETHING. Either you loose gear range or you get big jumps between the gears,
Especially on road bikes the compromise was more commonly the gear range, and it was accepted that uphill you would grind at a low cadence.
Criterium race gearing. Not much bigger the rest of the time.
My first proper racing bike had a 12-23 with 42-52 up front andI lived in the mountains. We didn’t give a shit about our knees back in the 80’s!
Because we used to ride big gears.
We used to be a proper society.
That’s no mountain bike!
That’s when men were men.