chain_whipped

Perhaps the One and only from Minnesota.

Classtime 

Don't forget to measure your rims -- 20mm max.

Pompiere

I live less than five miles from one of the only Beryllium processing plants in the country, and I know several people that work there. I also have had tours of the plant when I was a volunteer firefighter. Beryllium disease is serious, but the likelihood of getting it from a single exposure to some drill shavings or a broken part are extremely low. It is the long term effects of inhaling the dust or vapors from casting that can cause severe scarring on the lungs. However, it only affects those who are sensitive to Beryllium, which is a small fraction of the population. Unfortunately, you probably won't know if you are sensitive unless you work in a Beryllium plant and get tested for it. I know one guy who found other work when he learned that he had the sensitivity to Beryllium. They are really careful that nothing leaves the plant. The workers at the plant have to take off their uniforms, shower, and put on clean clothing before going home. During the tours, they would pass around aircraft parts that were made from Beryllium and they are crazy light. A bolt the size of your thumb felt like the weight of a paper clip. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/healt...yllium-disease

Kabuki12

Many years ago I made Beryllium copper lapping wires for bleed jets in hydraulic aircraft pumps. I was young and still learning about grinding various types of tools. I had a vacuum close to the grinding wheel while I was working . When I found out the side effects of working with this material I was a bit scared and had a blood test and breathing test . I was OK but others , working at Rockwell got COPD from doing what I was doing. Of course now I just work with benign things like Carbide and Cobalt!! Joe , grinding precision cutting tools for over 50 years , testing the limits

FrejusFlyer

My golf clubs are made of Beryllium Copper. I don't know why I love reading these Eroica rules threads, but as I've said before, as far as Eroica California, I never saw any bike police. Nobody was inspecting bikes, and I rode alongside someone on a 90's folding city bike with a basket on the back for part of the ride. The Italian version is much stricter.

mhespenheide 

I did have someone glance at my bike for a few seconds at Eroica California. I think it was the third edition. I know it was the last time that the start line was at the main town square downtown in Paso Robles. After that, no inspections.

FrejusFlyer

I was only there the first two years. I should have said that. So Somebody was actually inspecting the bikes? Wow.

Chombi1 

Some sidepull single pivot brakes work better than others. having good caliper arm profile design results in stiffer calipers that are responsive and strong. The Spidel LS2s I have on my French C&V bikes have beefy caliper arms and they brake very well. But some sidepulls that look good at first glance have just mediocre to poor braking performance. The Modolo Speedy comes to mind as it's caliper arms are quite thin in profile, so they flex quite a bit when braking, so you get a mushy feeling at the levers.

smd4

I don’t disagree with you. But I had Dura Ace 7400s, and their arms were noticeably beefier than just about anything on the market. But they never felt much better than the 600 EX calipers that they replaced. Were they better than what was on my Centurion Sport DLX? Sure. But they never felt like what I expected a top of the line brake set to feel like. I never had that feeling until I got the 7700 dual pivots.

bikingshearer 

I think "inspecting" is overstating it. More like "glancing and perhaps raising an eyebrow ever so slightly."

Kabuki12

Agreed , just a glance . I don't recall anyone getting bounced , even in the early Paso Robles days when Wes was there. I do remember critically looking at Luciano's old bike and wondering how the heck he was going to ride it . It was quite tattered . It WAS , however , period correct . (tacks hidden in his handlebars and all!). Now that is the spirit of Eroica! Joe

Classtime 

I will be inspecting.
And I will be conspiring with others in our group to drop any scofflaws.
I also am proposing a new rule: Any rear derailleurs used must be short or medium cage and all chainrings must have no fewer than 40 teeth.

iab

Bartali and Coppi are rolling in their graves. 42s are for city bikes, to ride to church in your Sunday best. Anything below 49 is embarrassing, 45 is tolerated. Any cog larger than 22 is for small children.

bikingshearer 

And for overly-large, rapidly aging adults . . . .

DiabloScott

Coppi was famously not a churchy guy.

iab

And never rode a 42.

genejockey 

Imagine how they'd feel about the 1x drive trains with enormous cogs, and a dozen of them!

EDIT: I expect they'd say, "FINALLY!!! That 44 x 18 crap is for the birds!"

genejockey 

52/40 Or Fight!

MCHunt

George Mount has said that nothing smaller than a 42-19 was necessary for racing the Giro. Now he loves his 32 cogs.. Gears for pros are one thing, for average riders, quite another.

seagrade 

For the sake of the historical record, Le Bici di Coppi by Amadori and Tullini references Coppi using 50/47x15-24 and Bartali 49/46x15-24 over the Aubisque, Tourmalet, Aspin and Peyresourde. I can’t translate the Italian but this would have been late 1940s or early 1950s.

Correspondence from 1954 references a 15-17-19-24-26 freewheel.

A comprehensive list of Coppi’s gear selection for the 1957 season shows gears as low as 51/47x14-24, and straight blocks to be the exception rather than the rule, saved for Paris-Roubaix and the Trofeo Barrachi (a glorious two-up time trial now consigned to history).

Photographs of the era show Merckx often using c. 24t climbing sprockets in the mountains, and Battaglin famously rode a triple crankset with 36x24 on Tre Cime de Lavaredo en route to winning the 1981 Giro.

These gears are not the 39/36x29/32/34 lows of today, but they are not the mythical corn cobs either. As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Classtime 

If I ever find a 1950s road racing bike, I will ride it in EroicaCA with gears appropriate to its era of racing and with spare tubulars across my shoulders. My EroicaCA bikes have been from the 80s and sporting the 42x24. If I get my 73 Le Champion finished in time, it will also have the 42x24. The most fun I have at EroicaCA is trying to hang with the guys with smaller clusters than that. They look the part and let me think I'm there.

mhespenheide 

Even if I had been riding bikes in the 60's, I wouldn't have been a professional at the time. So I don't try to pretend to be a pro. I pretend to be a club rider from the era, with the accompanying lower gears.