Maytag

Hey guys, just want to give a shout out to my Dad which turns 82 today and share some pics with you. In 1954, he was in his late teens, he and his buddy took off from Northern Germany on a trip to Venice in Italy. Their bikes (he believes the brand was Vaterland), had only 3 speed Huret hub shifter and coaster brakes in the back. Bikes were packed with tents, cooker and gitarre! Some of the higher passes still had cobble stone surface which, as we know, can be very exciting when wet. While pushing a loaded bike uphill for hours is no fun, he still enjoys that experience from his youth.
Take that....Carbonfiber, lightweight, 27 gear trigger shifter bike

Papa Tom

I love hearing stories about epic bicycle adventures in which the focus is not on the bike and the equipment, but on the people and the places they went.

Any bike can get you anywhere, which is why I hope to never have to get rid of my 1996 GT Outpost. This bike, a lower-end hardtail with caliper brakes and about 40 pounds of OEM components on it, has taken me on some of my life's most memorable journeys. In its time, it was considered "advanced," compared to what your Dad and his friend rode, but I remember feeling that all the rides I took with it could have been just as enjoyable with the single-speed, coaster brake Schwinn I owned before it.

In reality, 21 speeds and hand-brakes probably are easier to tour and commute on, as I have done with the GT for the past 22 years, but your father's tour is a reminder that just because something is easier to do a certain way, it isn't necessarily better and it doesn't necessarily make better memories.

Thanks for sharing.

stardognine

Ha, perfect timing. I'm just finishing up, crossing part of the Rockies. 😁 I have a thread, Greetings from New Mexico.
There's definitely a lot of pushing, lol, but I only pushed my Cannondale aluminum. And modern gear is way lighter.
. My hat's off to your dad. 👍😎
EDIT: I forgot to say, but I'll be 57 next month. Tell your dad give it another whirl. 😋😁

thumpism 

I did the same pass in '74 on a Batavus I bought in Amsterdam. With a 40/28 low gear combo I also did my share of walking on the climb.

djb

great story and fun to see the photos.
Having an adventurous spirit isnt anything new is it? A great role model of a story of just going out and doing something, figuring it out as you go and dealing with problems when they come along.

alan s 

jefnvk

Cool pics!

A three speed build/tour challenge for next year, to emphasize it is the trip not the equipment that matters, could be quite cool too

Happy Feet

I would be into that. I've got a SA hub just waiting for an excuse

djb

I used to shoot all my personal work in b+w, and so even though I used take a point and shoot camera with me back in the day, I still took rolls of b+w film, so my photos from trips in France and the west coast of the States from the 90s look like this 50s trip.
If the prints stick around in the family, generations down the road wont know any better and think thats all there was back when that old dead geezer rode his bike around here and there.

Happy Feet

Unless there's something good in the colour I personally love B&W as a medium. With digital now I shoot JPEG/RAW and decide to convert to B&W in editing. I used to have this software feature that would allow me to isolate one colour while zeroing out the others which was also pretty cool to play with.

indyfabz

I carried two B&W cameras across the U.S. (Seattle to Bar Harbor, ME) and then down the east coast to Philly in 1999, including a Mamiya 645 with metered view finder, power grip and three lenses. Came close in VT, but I never had to walk a hill.

spinnaker

Is this Stelvio Pass? Your Dad was much man if he tackled that on a 3 speed.

djb

Im sure Ive mentioned this before, but having had to do jobs in both colour and b+w back in the day, which was a pain in the behind, lugging two bodies, switching lens and trying to remember what stuff you shot with which body, I never liked doing both.
And with the switch to digital, I still didnt like it as if I shoot b+w, I look at the world in b+w, or in colour, and a digi body to me is in colour. And no I have never set up a body as b+w only, I guess cuz it just doesnt seem the same to me, old habits of half of my life in the darkroom and all that.

DropBarFan

Looks like quite an adventure! & I suppose the bikes were pretty nice for that time.

MarcusT

When you see what they rode and what treks they accomplished, kinda makes the kids today seem like wimps with their carbon, Dii, power meters, energy gels, etc.

jefnvk

Ah yes, the "back in the day" sports nostalgia.

Don't forget they probably were still allowed to use amphetamines as pick me ups back in the 50s too

Happy Feet

Yarr... I don't buy that thinking either. The stuff kids are doing at the sharp edge of extreme sports is incredible - in fact, considered impossible back in the day.

Even for this old guy, back in the day a good distance might have been 100-150km on a trip. Now, with my fast bike I can think in terms of aiming for 200km+

djb

Mr washer dryer, think also of the times, nearly everyone travelled by bike for everyday stuff in those days so the biking culture mindset was there, but your father still had the sense of adventure to head off to explore and see the world.

and also, think of what the reality was for him back then. If he turned 82, then he was born in 36, so he was 8 and a half at the wars end, old enough to probably remember the constant bombing and certainly old enough to remember how industrial northern germany as well as the cities were bombed to ratpoop, and old enough to be aware of the loss that pretty much all german families suffered.

So to me, the mindset of not that many years after the war and during reconstruction to say, "lets head off and ride to Italy" is both pretty cool and understandable, understandable in that so much bad stuff had happened during the war years, so to go and have an adventure that didnt involve getting killed would have been a neat idea.
Again, good on him and his friend.

DropBarFan

Those old-time riders had to walk up the bigger climbs. IME walking is slow but not esp tough.

MarcusT

Then you miss the point.
The bikes weighed 4 times as much, they had no moisture wicking clothes, no extra padded gloves, no Gortex, only cotton and wool. The tires may have held 50 psi with very little puncture resistance, lubrication was motor oil, brakes were barley adequate
If you want to compare a '67 Mustang to a 2018 Ferrari, then so be it, but give credit, where credit is due.

I did not want to say that kids are not doing incredible feats today, but how many will do a long distance tour without the tech of today?

Caretaker

You're exaggerating the difference between a touring bike of today and the equivalent one in the mid-1950s. The only real difference is the range of gears. As regards tyres people were touring for months even in the 1930s and having few if any problems with punctures. People touring in those days don't seem to have had such an obsession with kms/miles, it was more about seeing things and meeting people.
Anyone interested in finding out about cycle touring in these eras should read the bicycle travel books written by the Englishman Bernard Newman who cycle toured from the early 1930s up till the mid-1950s with the exception of the war years of course. Most of his books are out of print but a couple are available on Kindle.

Happy Feet

And you are ignoring what the "kids" of today are doing with that gear.

In the late 1800's, Sachtleben, Allen and later Lenz spent years riding around the world. In 2018 Jenny Graham did it unsupported in 124 days.

I don't deny that what the people of yesterday did was great - but I also don't think the people of today are any less great.

djb

from what my dad has told me, apparently my great grandfather used to bike all around his area of southern England on a pennyfarthing, so as Ive said in this topic before, to me the neat thing to take from this fellows dads story is the sense of adventure and setting out to see things under your own power--and that doesnt change, no matter the stuff we use.

DropBarFan

Caretaker

We certainly do live in a more sedentary world, at least in the more prosperous sections of it. As regards touring on 'ordinaries' (penny-farthing bicycles) : these were very expensive machines in their day and had virtually no baggage carrying capacity. A few people did 'tour' on them but most either used tricycles or confined themselves to day rides from a fixed base.