I remember being told, after finishing one near Ludlow maybe, that reliability trials were most definitely not sportives, because….well, I’ve got no idea tbh. Lack of signs? Smiles on peoples faces vs scowls? Map reading? Cost?

Could quite easily be the standard of riding… Well drilled groups averaging a speed comfortable for everyone in the group compared to a swarm of riders trying to kill each other to get a “gold standard” time.
(Not to say that the last 10-15 miles of a reliability wouldn’t be run off at 30+ mph with everyone on their mudguard clad winter training bikes, and the poor buggers on 68″ fixed shouting “easy” from the back…)

I have to say, none of the responses so far have made me long for a return to the days of silly large gears and rubbish kit!

sounds like road cycling back in the day was about ‘suffering’ rather than actually having fun on your bike 

although I suppose proper hard men would enjoy the suffering. Me..I think I’ll limit my use of the retro bike to 20 mile flat coffee rides.

I enjoy going up all the small hills local to me on 42/16 but I would not call it suffering and I would not call myself a proper hard man.  It just feels like the right gear for my riding.

IM still riding almost daily my 2002 (Once) Giant TCR – still much lighter than any bike I’ve owned, completed Paris Roubaix on it, gearing 52 with a 21/11 cassette – I still class it as a climbing bike and I think its still got a place on Leith Hill (long) on Strava in the top 10 from about 6 years ago… amazing bike…

I think we managed because that was the norm?!

although I suppose proper hard men would enjoy the suffering.

I think that’s probably about it. Road race cycling and the training for was once a niche sport, rather than the mass participation thing it is now. I don’t think there were too many around who went out for a ride that was not training for something. People who did it liked the suffering! Today’s roadie riding is a much broader church, and better for it. I’ve got to confess I was a probably a up uperty back in the day when my plumper (or basically normal) non obsessive friends started invading ‘my sport’ but these days I’m really proud that road riding is no longer a play thing of the freaks.

People just used to grind up things at a stupidly low cadence

Big Mig used a triple. I remember it making the Comic at the time. Was branded “Tea Time” Mig. Now they’re all riding compact inner rings and bigger sprockets. Technology and training has move on.

I don’t know if you’ve raced but you’d be surprised what you can do with the adrenalin, group effect etc.

Climbs that seem terrible on solo or social rides are just blasted up at speed you might not have thought possible (with accompanying pain obvs).

42/23 when I gave it a bash in the Lothians (your area iirc).

but how did mere mortals cope?

The sensible ones bought a triple. They were never really fashionable though, so died out with 10speed and compact chainsets.

The sensible ones bought a triple. They were never really fashionable though, so died out with 10speed and compact chainsets.

Pop over to the Cycling UK forum where there is often wailing and gnashing of teeth that the venerable triple chainset is dying out and how it was the best gearing ever and stories of folk who’ve bought another ten of them to see out their dying days… 🙄

I bought a triple chainset and a 12/27 cassette to give me a wall climbing 30/27 bottom gear 😅

Alf Engers took his 1978 25-mile TT record on 57×13 top gear.

Single chainring 177.5mm cranks, no aero, no lycra but lots of lightening holes 🙂

https://pezcyclingnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/engers-tt-920.jpg

I had an Alan Shorter track bike, but as a “junior” I was limited to a low gear, I think 48×15. The restriction has gone now

(full article https://pezcyclingnews.com/interviews/time-trial-king-alf-engers-part-2-rider-interview/ )

Photo of me riding L’Eroica in 2013 on my old Gios – 52/42 chainset and 13-21 freewheel. When racing you just had to HTFU because if you couldn’t keep up with the bunch, you were toast. Using downtube shifters in a fast-moving, tight bunch also required a degree more forward thinking, likewise braking because they were rubbish in comparison to modern brakes.