Originally Posted by
MarcusT
It seems we've gotten soft over the decades. I don't know about you, but fully loaded touring with a 36 X 26, would be next to impossible on challenging hills. Maybe if it were 26 X 36
I've always preferred the view that we've gotten smarter about gearing. I came into the touring game a bit later than many here, so had the advantage of soon having access to well performing derailleurs, 13-30 and 50/40/28 which got changed to a 24 pretty quickly.
The htfu attitude has always been there throughout the decades, partly due to technical limitations but mostly imo from hubris and all that.
Hard legged racer types have always looked down at regular people for being wimpy, but let's face it, taking care of your knees and legs with less lugging the crap out of your knees is even accepted and proven in the racing world now for a few decades, and as a very average skinny guy, having lower gearing over the decades of touring has been a real factor that I can still tour at close to 60 and look a lot younger than I am because I'm still active--and I credit taking care of my knees as part of still being active.