SpeedofLite 

Welcome back to the 1990s! America's cycling community is still basking in the afterglow from LeMond's TdF win. 7-speed is so yesterday. Road STI is just around the corner.
Technology, confidence and hyperbole will reign.

You might wonder why I include the fun, yet provocative, "Best Cycling Legs in America" and not, say something more serious and historical like LeMond's Training Secrets.
Well, because "...Legs..." is the main cover story and because I tend to like articles featuring relatively ordinary people like Joe Blow from Kokomo who are receiving a quick shot of fame. Maybe one of them is you or someone you know.
Besides, I don't think LeMond's training secrets are all that secret anymore.

Whatever...let me know if you'd like to see something else listed in the ToC and I'll do my best to send you a pdf.
But please check through the entire thread first in case I added articles to this thread later,
Bicycling issues are well over 100 pages now, so all of the interesting articles might not fit in the first post, or more than a few people requested the same article and I figured others might want it too.
Otherwise, just send me a PM that includes your email address.

Lazyass

Best legs haha. I was curious if any of the 55+ people were still alive or how old they made it to.

Pat DeBever died in '17 at age 82
Stan Klet died this past November at age 85


Dorothy "Dottie" Dorion may still be around. Was in the ITU Honolulu Tri world championships in '05 in the 70-74 age group. Inducted into the UNF Athletic Hall of Fame in 2007 and they named the campus fitness center after her.



As of 2018 she was still with us.

https://norwichtimes.com/the-ultimate...ttie-s-dorion/

SpeedofLite 

Thanks for those contributions. After reading the segment about Dorothy Dorion from Norwich, CT and her comments of "Consistency", "No flat stretches anywhere", and not being too old to get "stronger and better", it reminded me of a good friend who moved to Niantic, CT from southeast Michigan around 2001. We were both entering middle age at the time. She was of average strength and speed in Michigan, but when I joined her for a ride in CT about 5 years later, she was absolutely crushing steeper and longer hills than anything we had in Michigan, and on the same bike. It was all I could do to keep up with her. Part of me still believes she led me on a "payback" ride.

2cam16

Susan Berliner's legs though. She was still looking good in 2011:

https://www.facebook.com/sweatprincess

SpeedofLite 

Man, is she ever living life to the fullest!

uncle uncle

I skipped the nineties... I had kids, along with other obligations, and the bicycle was busy collecting dust in the garage. All I remember, now, is that the bicycle shop I previously worked at (in the early 80's) had to clear out all old bicycles and parts from the basement and have a "estate" type sale. The head mechanic I worked for, and shop owner now, said that they barely kept the shop open with the proceeds. Sadly, I didn't know anything about the sale, so I wasn't there. My friend/old head mechanic/current shop owner said that there was lots of old cool stuff that left the premises that sale day. So... an article from the early 90's, of how great things were going to be, seems ironic, to me.
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Darth Lefty 

So what actually happened?

Racing: Miguel Indurian. The 1999 event imagined in the first bit was in fact Armstrong's first win.

Electronic shifting finally arrived but took another 25 years to proliferate.

Full suspension mountain bikes? Absolutely yes.

Performance had a heyday, yes.

Lots of hybrids as MTB's got more offroady - fixies hadn't hit yet

SRAM anti trust lawsuit

And the answer to what happened to the car / energy / environment is FORD EXPLORER

cb400bill

I've not seen any of those promised bicycle superstores with 500+ bikes on display.

Chombi1 

Interesting, seeing those Nike cycling shoes on the guy's feet on the cover. I remember buying a very nice looking pair of Nike cycling shoes in the mid 80's. It was one of their first models. In white with perforations. Made the mistake though of buying a pair that were slightly tight on my feet, because I always bought cycling shoes a bit small as theh usually break in nicely and stretch to the exact tight size on my feet after some miles, but the Nikes were made entirely from synthetic materials, so they never broke in/stretched for me, so I had to give them up to my younger brother who wore one size smaller shoes than me, back then.
Never bought Nikes again, after that unpleasant, painful experience. Tried looking for Nike cycling shoes again after a few years, but I guess they got out of the cycling shoe business in the early 2000's? But are they back??

ryansu

Stop it 1990 was only a few years ago ok maybe a decade ok 30 years man I am getting old. I wasn't riding in 1990 but I was by late 99 in my middle 30s....

Darth Lefty 

That stuff moved online. No one at Bicycling! expected that. Trek alone has 306 models... today.

sheddle

The "small custom builders" bit in racing bikes actually did happen to an extent, with some riders using custom titanium frames during that weird 90s period where you had a mix of titanium/carbon/aluminum in the pro peloton.

Other advances got stopped by the UCI, probably for the best as a) y-frames are ugly, sorry Trek stans, and b) having significant differences between bike makers would likely have given them too much control over the sport, see: auto racing where engine manufacturers can dictate who's successful with supply contracts.

e) of course, the big trend in racing was actually EPO, though the infamous Fleche Wallone with the rocket-powered Gewiss team, usually considered the point where the problem couldn't be ignored anymore was still a few years off

Darth Lefty 

Oh, and pursuant to the notional bike race through Morocco... The (onetime Paris-to-) Dakar rally was last held in Africa in 2007, canceled due to Mauritanian terrorists in 2008, held in South America 2009-19 and 2020 in Saudi Arabia.

jadocs

I like Claude Schmidt's karate pose

Chr0m0ly 

Time to watch the the new Season Three of Star Trek TNG!!

mrv 

- yes, no cycling Super-Mart... PERFORMANCE went belly up with their stores.

But Wal-Mart went cycling!! https://www.outsideonline.com/229548...le-track-minds

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/walmar...ike-brand.html - $6k for a Wal-Mart bike anyone?

Brad L 

I'd completely forgotten about Twinlab's Ultra Fuel. I used it for recovery and remember it worked fairly well.

due ruote 

I am guessing these are from the 80’s. Found them a few years ago at a co-op. Man are they comfy.

crank_addict

TIG welding. I think everyone was doing it. Even had a bottle and spool in the kitchen set next to the microwave.

The yuk uni-crown fork.

DiabloScott

Going through some old photos and look what I see!

dmurraypa@aol.c

Thats my legs a long time ago !!

SpeedofLite 

You're the guy shown on the Table of Contents page and page 63 of the Cover article?

dmurraypa@aol.c

yep, the one and only.

dmurraypa@aol.c

Yes. David Murray from the inside article. I tried to post a picture of the framed magazine, but it won't let me until I have 10 posts.

dmurraypa@aol.c

The shoes in the picture were two sizes too small for me. Too narrow !!