jackbombay

YES!

I have had the same experience! My 2014 carbon bike weighs 19 pounds ready to ride, and my 1973 Raleigh Super Course weighs 29 pounds ready to ride, but somehow I PR'd some strava segments on the Raleigh on climbs that I was previously going "full blast" up on my Carbon bike. So, I was hauling an additional 10 pounds up the hill and still did it faster with the taller gearing of the old bike? I was perplexed to see that result, but also quite happy to see that an old lower end steel bike can smash hills with aplomb despite being old and heavier.

canklecat

Brifters offer a huge advantage on terrain that demands lots of shifting to maintain momentum and conserve energy. I realized that pretty quickly on fast group rides where I was the only guy with downtube shifters. Little gaps kept opening on every sprint-climb -- those short, steep climbs typical of Texas rolling terrain. The sit-to-shift, stand-to-sprint catchup, etc., game was wearing out my legs quicker.

Depending on the group and leader, rather than maintaining a steady effort to keep the group and paceline together, some folks always turn every hill into a sprint to drop everyone else. Some ride leaders don't do that so the paceline stays intact. But it depends on whether the leader has any race experience. It's mostly the non-racer types who have a good sprint but mediocre bike handling skills who keep breaking up the line with unnecessary sprints and surges.

I was usually the oldest in those groups and it was a struggle to keep up with my Ironman using downtube shifters. I'd be fine on flat terrain and downhills. These same folks who sprint up every climb tend to loaf on flat terrain and coast downhill, rather than maintaining a steady effort.

When I got a bike with brifters I discovered I could shift while standing during climbs. No need to sit, reach down to shift, stand again, etc. No need to continued grinding the big gear I was in at the bottom of the climb, in order to avoid that split second of momentum loss, while killing the legs quicker.

And on days with heavy crosswind, it's much more reassuring to keep both hands on the handlebar while shifting. I've done some rides on my steel bike with downtube shifters when I'd avoid reaching down to shift due to heavy crosswind, so I'd be grinding in a ridiculous gear, or spinning like an eggbeater.

I still love my steel bike with downtube shifters and ride it about a third of the time. And it's often on my indoor trainer for easy spins to keep the legs limber and cool down after a hard workout ride or jog. I plan to keep at least one steel bike with downtube shifters, although I might switch that Ironman back to friction shifters for more flexibility with different wheelsets using freewheels by SunRace, Suntour and Shimano. The Suntour GPX index shifter is nice, but I was already accustomed to friction downtube shifters since using 'em in the 1970s.

But for fast group rides, brifters can really help, especially trying to keep up with younger, stronger riders to avoid getting gapped and losing the draft. My main reason for switching to an older carbon fiber bike with brifters was so the group didn't feel obligated to wait for the slowpoke old man at the top of every climb at 5-10 mile intervals. I didn't want to wear out my welcome.

At the moment I have some inexpensive but functional MicroShift 7-speed integrated shifters/brakes (separate levers, the brake lever is for braking only; unlike the Shimano STI integrated shifters/brakes) on one carbon fiber bike. And I plan to put a set of older 8-speed Shimano STI brifters on another. Those bikes are light enough that I can get by with a 23T or, at most, 25T rear cog. But I prefer at least a 25 on my Ironman, and one wheelset has a 13-28 for easier rides when I don't feel like making it a workout.

cyclic_eric

Some of the explanation can be put down to positioning, with knees nearly hitting handlebar tops and full body weight assisting.


As was suggested earlier, I believe some of the challenge of riding those gears helped popularize mountain and hybrid bikes.

unterhausen

I lived in the mountains so I always ran a 13-21 cassette with 54/44 crank. For winter training, i would go to a 24 in the back. No reason to over-stress the knees.

If you watch old videos of racing, they likely would have been faster with lower gears. And if it got really steep, someone with a triple could have cleaned up. I recall that touring bikes could get a 34 tooth low gear freewheels. But I think most people that did serious touring had a TA triple. Campagnolo's triple had a 34 tooth small chainring, so it was pretty worthless. My granny gear on the tandem was 34 front, 24 rear.

daka

I question whether racers would have gone faster with lower gears. The energy required to climb a particular hill remains the same - a given amount of mass to be lifted a given distance, etc.. The rate at which that energy must be expended is determined by the speed and, consequently, the amount of time that the given climb takes. Lower gears won't alter the total energy required but they will allow the rider to make the climb at a lower speed while maintaining a more comfortable cadence, slowing the rate at which energy is expended. I think the preference for lower gears has its genesis in comfort rather than speed - easier not faster.

HTupolev

If the gear is merely high enough to force a bigger effort than desired, sure: racers might conserve on the flats and do bigger efforts on the hills, and perhaps go faster on the ascents as a consequence.

But that's not the only thing seen in old racing videos. On the steeper ascents, they're sometimes just plain horribly bottomed out, pedaling really slowly and throwing their weight all over the place to keep the gears turning. Power is torque*cadence; if you're bottlenecked on pedaling torque and your cadence is extremely low, your power output goes down.

leftthread

Yes, just look how long the long jump records for Bob Beamon, Mike Powell and Jackie Joyner-Kersey have stood.

daka

Some caution is appropriate here - if we use the term "torque * cadence" as corollary of "torque * rpm" equaling horsepower in an internal combustion engine we can be mislead. While an internal combustion engine produces zero torque at stall (0 rpm) the human body is better compared to a steam engine which can produce max torque at stall.

The limit, which I think you are referring to as "bottlenecking" is when the torque required at the rear wheel to propel bike and rider forward up a steep hill cannot be provided by max. torque of the rider diminished by the gear ratio of the drivetrain (every gear on a vintage road bike being some variant of overdrive). Lower gears (less overdrive) do indeed increase torque at the rear wheel at the expense of less forward progress per revolution of the crankset.

HTupolev

I'm not saying that the torque goes down with cadence. I'm saying that, when you're badly bottomed-out, you can't increase it in proportion to the loss of cadence. And that this causes a loss of power. It's not like cyclists can push much harder on the cranks at 25rpm than at 50rpm; and if your cadence drops in half and you can only produce a tiny bit more torque, then your power has been cut nearly in half.

vespasianus

My first "real" bike was a Cannondale with 52/42 chainrings and a 12-21 seven speed cassette. That bike is still at my parents house and I recently road it and I can't believe people road bikes like this. It was just plain painful. But in 1990, I I road that bike everywhere and never really thought about it.

woodcraft

My bike BITD had I think 52/39, & probably 23 in the back- possibly 25. Coast range, Rockies, (lightly) loaded touring, everywhere.

The only time I recall walking was in a section being paved with deep, soft gravel.

Now I'm happy with 34/34.

since6

It was all they had at that time, and at that time it was the best they could get. If you could race it, you raced it. If you couldn't you watched. It's pretty much been that way with everything that has been used as a tool for racing, bicycles, cars, motorcycles, airplanes, boats, you name it. Looking back at what was used in the past you scratch your head and wonder what they were thinking and how could they do it?

It was all they had at that time, and it was the best they could get.

We have the choice now, so you see retro-mod. classic sports/muscle cars with suspensions and brakes that actually work and engines that don't blow up, same is true in retro mod bicycles, sure some of us just as back then, can still ride killer hills on the race bikes of the past, but no one races on them now, because they are no longer the best you can get.

Though it is fun to go to vintage car races, until someone shows up with a vintage car with a ?vintage? sixties Corvette with an 800 hp engine.

sincos

Federico Bahamontes (scrawny climber aka "The Eagle of Toledo") used to say that he loved the hot days in the mountains because they weeded out the dopers. Amphetamines were apparently bloody murder in the heat (almost literally -- see Simpson, Tommy). "Weeding out the dopers" sounds so quaint these days.

sheddle

As someone very much not built like a modern climber, higher geared, out-of-the-saddle with full weight assistance is generally my preferred way to get up steep bits, though I've never actually gone out of the city to do like, an "actual" mountain pass. Probably explains why I generally like that sort of older-style, saddle-rails-at-stem-height fit.


Also I get to pretend I'm in a 1960s TDF newsreel or something.

iab

Didn't happen then, doesn't happen now.

1934 Bartali.



Coppi/Contador comparison





Merrckx

sykerocker 

Thinking back to the days of the Presque Isle Bicycle Club (Erie, PA 1972-77), the "standard" road bike available at the time (think Raleigh Grand Prix) came with a 42-52t cottered crank, 14-28t five speed freewheel, and no Internet to do your shopping. Which meant your local bicycle dealer probably carried 14-30 and 14-32 clusters in stock, although that would also mean replacing the Simplex Prestige on the rear with a Sun Tour GT. A fair amount of bucks for the average rider who'd already spent $125.00 on that bike.

If you wanted to do serious gearing changes to your bike, you first found out from the other guys who did mail order and was reliable, then either borrowed one of their catalogs or ordered your own, then ordered the necessary parts. Which is to say, usually, anything more than that simple freewheel/rear derailleur change was something planned out over about three weeks. Changing chainwheels was fairly well unknown until Sugino showed up on the scene. Yes, there were T/A's available, but nobody in Erie sold bikes that used them, so nobody carried any parts for them in stock.

You had a good climbing bikes if you could do the once a month Presque Isle State Park ride without over stressing yourself. A 17 mile absolutely flat loop, with a 1/2 mile hors catagorie climb from hell to get back out of the park and one the roads back into town.

conspiratemus1

Acidosis (the accumulation of metabolic acids, chiefly lactic,) from dehydration and exhausting exercise makes the heart more “twitchy” to the effects of these adrenaline-like drugs, which are additive to the adrenaline already being produced anyway. Cardiac arrest can result. “Positional asphyxia”, (as in prone handcuffing) a forensic term with no direct meaning in ordinary clinical medicine, is said to increase further the risk of sudden death, especially if the person has also taken opiates, intentionally or unwittingly. Defibrillation of the severely acidotic heart is not often successful. Yes, speed kills.

(Cocaine, especially with tobacco, causes cholesterol plaque buildup in the coronary arteries much faster than expected for a young person, so yet another dumb way to die.)

So I can understand that hot weather would weed out the dopers by killing them, as it did Simpson, but how the heat would cause users of meth to fall behind and abandon non-fatally I don’t quite understand. Would it be that meth goes only so far to hide inadequate training and genetic endowment, and when it got hot enough, only the clean guys could keep the pace?

sykerocker 

Which is why I've been hard core conservative on the vintage vehicle front (automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles) since I started in the antique car hobby with the AACA back in 1968. While I can appreciate hot rods as a separate entity (and like them), anyone who calls a resto-rod (in any category: resto-rod automobiles, modified motorcycles, vintage frames with modern components) an "antique" gets my scorn. Just because it looks like original doesn't mean you're getting the original experience or understanding the original performance. Happily, bicycles are the easiest to put right. What I've seen at some Cars & Coffees is enough to make me cry . . . . . and want to take a length of 2x4 to the owner.

robertorolfo

Exactly. My default for those statements is indeed always the track & field (or 'athletics') results. And they pretty much speak for themselves, even when you take into account the numerous factors at play (doping, access to coaching and facilities...)

moto635

[QUOTE=texaspandj;21827372
Possibly I was tougher but for certain I was younger.[/QUOTE]

The older I get the faster I went 😂

AlanO

They used to walk

sfruechte

Probably a combination of fitter, thinner and sometimes getting off and pushing.

brown6054

In the 70s my smallest gear was 42x18; but that was in the Midwest where most, but all roads are pretty flat. We never walked uphill with those deep cleats.
Not great for the knees but we managed somehow. The trick was try to make it look easy by staying in saddle as long as possible.

Stan Heinricher

My cycling goes back to the mid-70s, when you could readily buy individual sprockets from Bike Warehouse for your Sun Tour 5-speed freewheel and somewhat easily customize your freewheel to suit the conditions you rode in. If you needed to remain seated while climbing a steep hill, like those old farm-road hills in western PA that never were graded by the US Army Corps of Engineers, you might equip yourself with a 26-tooth low sprocket for your racing bike. 42x26 was suitable gearing for any hill I encountered. Why would you choose to remain on the saddle when climbing a steep hill in summer? Because the tar on the road was melting, and you needed traction from the rear wheel -- traction that results from putting your weight over that wheel.

Sluggo

Octave Lapize, 1910 TDF

This is not really in the context of the OP's question, since they were still riding single speeds in 1910. But Lapize won the TDF that year. He also called the organizers murderers as the riders struggled up the Aubisque.