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I remember when V brakes came out they were awesome
They certainly stopped you better than cantilevers but I also found they jammed up more readily in mud. My off road commuter has them on the back and in winter I can be stopping regularly as the rear wheel stops going round if the mud is at the wrong consistency
Anyone else had the rear U brake under the seat stays? That was not a step forward!
Yeah i did, it worked fine tbh.
Cantis were a step back in terms of power, and had worse modulation too.
But **** me, they weighed a bloomin ton!!
One of my early bikes was a 1991 Gt timberline that had a rear U brake.
Didn’t really notice anything about it although the bike was made from iron and incredibly heavy.
Gave it to a young relative when I got a Pantera in 1995. Such a different bike, especially with the ‘upgrade’ of some Quadra 21 forks.
Everything above, plus LED lights. Making winter night spins less of a faff.
Electric bikes.
... not really. Specifically I'd say: disc brakes, decent flat pedals, indexed gears.
More generally I'd say the kick up the arse that ATBs gave to the entire bike industry.
Forgot Aheadsets. Total game changer. Most of you will have forgotten the trauma of changing stems and fitting bikes. It was just pain. With an aheadset and modern stems, the number of frame sizes has reduced and the ease of swapping and fitting increased immensely.
Nothing wrong with traditional headsets, but aheadsets with preload are just so much better.
Anything that requires massive spanners to adjust and regularly comes loose has plenty wrong with it!
They were ok on road bikes but headsets were a pain for off road use.
I'd go with geometry. At 6'3, old school 26" bikes never really felt like they fitted properly. Nice long modern 29ers do though. I could live without a few other modern features in exchange for a bike that fits/handles nicely.
Multitools.
Did anyone else have those terrible "spanners" stamped out of mild steel that had most of the sizes you need to keep your bike going?
Invariably they would bend, and/or round off the thing you were working on.
I remember going into a bike shop a lifetime ago to buy a new one and they had stopped stocking them a decade earlier.
the original v8 and v12 pedals.
So many small improvements have created mega machines.
Indexed multi shifts up and down
Remote Droppers
Shift away from 1 wheel size
Suspension
Disc Brakes
tubeless
Bikebuilders CHOICE
Trail centres
Carbon
When you think of all the changes over the last 30 years I don't think there's ever been a big shift, everything is just a small improvement from what there was.
Disc brakes, tyres, air shocks.
Recently I've swapped out my air shock for a slightly reduced travel coil shock,and it's caused an astounding improvement in the bike for me.
In approximate chronological order:
Indexed Gears
A-head Sets
Disc Brakes
Descent Suspension
Tubeless Wider Tyres
Dropper Posts
Improved Geometry
SPDs for me. Prior to that is was clips and straps, or power grips. Cross racing tells me i can go back to rigid, small tyres, and v brakes but I'd never swap out the SPDs.
Oh yeah, Id forgotten led lights, at last batteries lasted more than one ride!!
When i used to ride to hamsterley forest at night, i took 4 sets of rechargeable batteries with me, to power a halogen vistalite, with an absolutely puny 2.4w bulb.
A low powered modern led light would blow that away.
In order of adoption for me:-
V-brakes
Headsets
Index gears
SPDs
Suspension fork
Disc brakes
Lock on grips
Rear suspension
non-square cranksets
Speed link
Dropper posts
LED lights
and more recently that wee button on Sram rear mechs for removing the wheel.