Why was old time road gearing so hard?

Having a re-read of The Rider, which describes the back-breaking gearing road racers were using in the 1970s. Like a 20T sprocket as your easiest gear for a hilly race.

Given you would select the sprockets individually, was there some technical reason for not being able to use anything bigger? Something like derailleur capacity, or maybe a six-speed drivetrain wouldn’t shift right with a wider-spaced cluster?

Tradition is very strong in bike racing, but surely the absolute misery of pushing those gears up hill was obvious to everyone – even at the time?

I believe that at the time, climbing hills was seen (incorrectly) as a test of strength. It’s only relatively recently that sports science has shown that higher cadences are more efficient hence the invention of compact groupsets?

Tradition is very strong in bike racing, but surely the absolute misery of pushing those gears up hill was obvious to everyone – even at the time?

I don’t think it was! That was what the pros used so that was what was available and everyone knew that to be a pro you needed to be hard and gritty and ideally in black-and-white. In fact there were many who protested at gearing in the first place arguing that it made riders wimps and wusses.

It was just The Way Things Were.

Lance Armstrong said in an interview or podcast once that if he’d turned up at a race using the gearing that riders were on now, he’d have been laughed out of the peloton – and he’d have done the same to anyone else who turned up with gearing like that. In fact I remember one of my early road races (mid 90’s, one of the hillier Surrey League ones) using a 12-25 cassette – this in the days when most riders were on 12-21 or maybe 12-23 – and someone calling me a bloody soft (removed by Mod).

There were technical limitations too of course but basically you rode what was available – and what was available was what the pros rode because everyone wanted to emulate the pros. If you needed lower gears because you were touring you used a normal 39/53 double chainset with a 30T ring sort of bolted into the inside.

I remember as a kid being put off by a ride on my cousin’s bike which had a tiny cassette. My first bike was a BSA ( Raleigh built ) which had ten gears but with none of them suitable for living in a hilly area. I am convinced the popularity of MTBs/hybrids was initially due to having actual usable gears.

Machismo.

I guess it’s the same reason everyone was running around on 18mm tyres.

With an absence of data people go with how things feel.  18mm tyres pumped up to 120psi feel fast because the road vibrations makes it seem like you a ripping along.  Once people started measuring stuff it became apparent that smoother didn’t just feel comfier but it was in fact faster.

I guess it was the same thing with gearing.  Grinding up hills felt like you were super powerful (or maybe not) whereas spinning away felt like you were out for a Sunday potter (or maybe not).

Data over feelings, imo.

Just had a 1982 bike restored and I was surprised that the original groupset offereded a longer cage mech, which we managed to find. Means it’s gone from a 5spd 11-22 or something silly to a 6spd 16-30.

So I guess people were just harder than they needed to be 40 years ago. And why replacement knees have the longest NHS waiting times.

Derailleur capacity in those days were very limited, 13-straight blocks for racing was the norm and 14-28 for touring. Campagnolo, Simplex and the like did long-cage derailleurs but when you’re reliant on a friction shifters, it was harder to get a clean shift. Simply put, you just got on with what you got. I remember being accused of ‘cheating’ when I fitted a 39/52 chainset.

… what was available was what the pros rode because everyone wanted to emulate the pros.

I don’t think a lot has changed. When I look at what other riders turn up on to the occasional roadie club run I attend or what is being promoted on GCN, they are the kind of bikes that are aimed at serious racers, and very few in my club do that.

It goes both ways as well.

For example Hoy pioneered the modern sprint tactic of running a huge gear. Before that the received wisdom was you ran a small gear for sprints and timed your attack to jump away from your opponent with just enough track left to reach the line before they could counter. Hoy being the machine he is, just put a big gear on and rode away from them much further out. If he was in front they had no chance of matching his speed (even with a draft), if he was behind he could just ride over them as he was just getting started while their cadence topped out.

There’s probably an element of adaptation in it. I’ve been riding my fixie a lot which means I’ve been slogging up hills in 42-16. When I jump on the MTB with it’s 32-51 gear it feels crap. I can spin it at 90rpm, but not feel like I’m  going anywhere, shift up a gear and I’m knackered.  If it wasn’t for the suspension I’d shift up 5 gears and just grind up the hill out of the saddle.  If you get used to climbing in 39-20 or whatever they had, it’s not unbelievable that they didn’t test out a lower gear and find it slower.

Plus tech moves slowly.  They went from fixed, to 1x. Which meant the BCD needed to support a big chainring. Which probably meant that without someone re-inventing the whole drivetrain that 39t/130mm was the best you could get for a racer.

Machismo

No, it was Marchisio that made freewheels 🙂

I am convinced the popularity of MTBs/hybrids was initially due to having actual usable gears.

I remember Richard Cunningham saying something along those lines in a podcast.

Gears you could ride up a hill on, brakes that worked, an upright position and tyres that didn’t need pumping up every week.

The budget rigid 90’s MTB was a massive improvement over the “racer” or “cruiser/shopper” options people had before.

And for a few people, was the gateway drug – “what if I rode down that singletrack path there?”

We also rode 48×16 fixed gears in winter and rode up nearly everything – hills in 42×21 felt easy in comparison

Brilliant book. Only came across it last year at the local library.

THE RIDER describes one 150-kilometre race in just 150 pages. In the course of the narrative, we get to know the forceful, bumbling Lebusque, the aesthete Barthelemy, the young Turk Reilhan and the mysterious ‘rider from Cycles Goff’. Krabbe battles with and against each of them in turn, failing on the descents, shining on the climbs, suffering on the (false) flats. The outcome of the race is, in fact, merely the last stanza of an exciting and too-brief paean to stamina, suffering and the redeeming power of humour. This is not a history of road racing, a hagiography of the European greats or even a factual account of his own amateur cycling career. Instead, Krabbe allows us to race with him, inside his skull as it were, during a mythical Tour de Mont Aigoual.

I’m sure I heard about pros having to get off and run on super steep hills in races in the 70s/80s?

I am convinced the popularity of MTBs/hybrids was initially due to having actual usable gears.

When I was a kid (just before MTBs came out) road bikes were referred to only as ‘racers’ even if they were cheap Apollo crap.

Bikes were typically 10 speed with 5 at the back and 2 up front. Friction shifters on the down tube. Just didn’t have the range and precision of modern shifters to allow more cogs and couldn’t cope with a wide jump between cogs modern mechs and cassettes can have.

Early 90s I had 2×6 52/42 with 11-24 for “general” use. It was possible to go bigger on the block (I fitted up to 28 for hills) but only having  6 speeds would give big jumps between gears. I also (very briefly) experimented with 11-21. I have had that old bike on a modern wheel off turbo fitted with an 11-34 cassette and it shifts fine (if you turn off the indexing). So no real technical limitation back then other than the number of speeds available.

Bear in mind that tourers had 3x chainsets and most of the French cyclists I saw back then were on 3x spinning up the hills. If I remember correctly 3x did also see some use in the pro peloton too before more speeds became available at the back. Now we have 12 speed we are seeing some use of 1x in races.

They also didn’t routinely go up the sort of mountains after multiple days in the Alps that the riders in the grand tours do now. Alto d’Angliru was only introduced in 1999, Zoncolan in 2003, and a lot of the passes that are included now weren’t even tarmaced.

Oldy timey gears would’ve had you off and walking, and no one wants to see that.

Raced 53T 12-23 10 speed yesterday and ride fixed 49×16 everywhere. I must be old school. Truth be told; the race was a circuit race and gearing was perfect. The 23 was originally so I would not spin out in a sprint on a compact 50T chainset, but I’ve gone to old DA7700 now instead. For fixed, rules are a bit different. I do like good grind up a hill on fixed – and you can get up steeper inclines when you have no choice but to heave. Surry is not, however, my native Devon, however climbing Remenham hill out of Henley was murderous a few weeks ago!

Big Mig rode a triple in the Alps – it was referred to as “Tea-time” in The Comic with a photo feature! The BCD of 130 only allows relatively large (38T) inner rings, and it took a long time to get smaller semi-compacts rather than granny gears.

Bikes were typically 10 speed with 5 at the back and 2 up front. Friction shifters on the down tube. Just didn’t have the range and precision of modern shifters to allow more cogs and couldn’t cope with a wide jump between cogs modern mechs and cassettes can have.

My first proper bike was like that. Dawes Audax. Those stupid suicide brake levers, downtube shifters and 23c tyres (23c cos it was “audax”, not the 19c it’d have had if it was a true “racer”).

I remember trying to finesse the gear changes, trying to get it just into this cog, not that one, riding one-handed up a hill fumbling around trying to get the gear selected.

Then I got my first proper MTB and that had 28/38/48 chainset coupled with a 12-28 cassette (must have been 7sp back then). A low gear of 1:1! Wow! That was a true wall-climbing gear. Reading MBUK in the months before my purchase it was how they differentiated a “true” MTB – if it had a 1:1 gear ratio, it was the real deal. Also my mate had bought a new MTB a month or so before me but his didn’t have a 1:1 ratio so mine was better!

Bikes were typically 10 speed with 5 at the back and 2 up front. Friction shifters on the down tube. Just didn’t have the range and precision of modern shifters to allow more cogs and couldn’t cope with a wide jump between cogs modern mechs and cassettes can have.

I don’t agree. I’ve built up retro touring bikes with modern drivetrains and they work just fine, the limiting factor of friction shifting  is that without indexing it’s harder to get it just right on a hyperglide cassette. If someone made a 11-32 cassette with plain teeth I reckon you could get it to shift just fine with friction shifters.

It didn’t seem too bad at the time. 30+ years ago I rode 42/52 13-18 everywhere, unless it was the winter fixed bike on 42×18. Peak district? No problem. I was however young, thin and strong, none of which I am now.
Yesterday I was cursing my 34×25 bottom gear as my rather rusty road legs (just) got me home.

Then I got my first proper MTB and that had 28/38/48 chainset coupled with a 12-28 cassette (must have been 7sp back then). A low gear of 1:1! Wow! That was a true wall-climbing gear

more importantly, what on earth did they expect anyone to do with a 48:11?

more importantly, what on earth did they expect anyone to do with a 48:11?

26×1.8 tyres would have a diameter of ~650mm

29×2.5 is ~750mm

It’s only the equivalent of a modern 42:10, i.e. a gravel bike, which is what we’d call a 1.8″ (45c in cool gravel money) tire these days.

I’ve built up retro touring bikes with modern drivetrains and they work just fine.

With friction shift? Blimey struggled to index on 5 speed never mind 12 or 13.

more importantly, what on earth did they expect anyone to do with a 48:11?

Don’t forget, this was the days when a “DH race” meant bombing down a massive fireroad in the Rockies on a 60T chainring! John Tomac even famously used drop bars in a few races cos the courses were just flat out high speed charges down a gravel road or sometimes a ski slope! That was DH. You needed big gears.

more importantly, what on earth did they expect anyone to do with a 48:11?

IIRC, it was just part of a progressive change. It was one step smaller than what had gone before!

I remember when 22/32/42 came in and I thought it was dumb – whoever wants gearing that low?

These days, I’m perfectly happy to freewheel where necessary 😅

For some perspective, my “Gravel” (well titanium cross) bike is currently running Gevenale shifters as friction not index – it’s 11 speed shifting on a 10 speed wheel and also 10 speed cassette on the Kickr. Shifting is light and instant. We are conditioned to index shifting now, but forget just how nice it is to smoothly move a lever. And you can’t drop nine cogs as fast on anything else 😉 . Shifting is perfect, and trimming barely noticeable.

@crazy-legs “ (or a soft #####),” are you still stuck in that era? Not an acceptable  term to use, in my opinion.

@crazy-legs “ (or a soft #####),” are you still stuck in that era of macho gearing? Not an acceptable  term to use, in my opinion.

@wheelsonfire1 – you’re right. That was the second mention (the first already removed by a mod) where I was called such a term for using low gears and then carried on the simile as a sort of reference to the first part of the story. But with the first part removed, the second makes no sense.

The first got removed (and I got a warning), the second was clearly missed which I hadn’t noticed either, I thought the mods had removed both mentions.

I apologise and I’ve reported my own post to ask the mods to remove the second mention as well. It was ill-judged on my part and I’m sorry.

I don’t agree.

Try getting accurate shifts without the availability of compressionless outer, the linear wound stuff we get now is an absolute godsend compared to what we had before.

more importantly, what on earth did they expect anyone to do with a 48:11?

Go faster?

Pretty sure the highest stock ratio has never been 48:11 though. 48:13 and then 46:12 i think? You could make a 48:11 if you wanted though.

And some races you needed a ratio like that, 60kph down a couple of km of downhill forest track to get to the next 200m of slop before the 80 other riders got there and got (literally) stuck in. One reason i still have 2x on my XCM bike, there are long sustained bits where you might actually end up in a proper echelon in some of the marathons round here.

Can still remember the abuse i got (in the 90s!!!) when i ditched the 52/42 and 11/23 for a 53/39 and 12/25. (Campag Croce 8 speed with Syncro 2 DT shifters IIRC.)

Gave me almost the same spread of gears at the top, more usable gears in the middle and a lower bottom ratio.

The abuse stops when you start winning stuff though.

They also didn’t routinely go up the sort of mountains after multiple days in the Alps that the riders in the grand tours do now. Alto d’Angliru was only introduced in 1999, Zoncolan in 2003, and a lot of the passes that are included now weren’t even tarmaced.

They went over quite a lot of them before they were tarmacced, to be fair

I suspect people use to ride the stuff the pros rode with absolutely zero consideration for whether it was the most appropriate tool for the job

a bit like they do just now. Yesterday I took my tarmac out on an 80 mile ride. It’s an uncompromising race bike and my back and neck were in bits at the end. Meanwhile I have a lovely giant defy in the garage that would be far better suited for the job.

It was before gears / brakes / geometry became woke obviously.

We are conditioned to index shifting now, but forget just how nice it is to smoothly move a lever.

I ran Paul’s Components adapters with Ultegra bar end shifters on my XC Race bike for years, sometimes in friction mode. But usually not,  because it wasn’t as good. I bought them because the setup was both much cheaper and much lighter than the XTR alternative – you can’t say that very often. However now I run RFP.  So I haven’t forgotten 🙂

The range a mech (or two) are able to work through now is certainly much better than it was. That plays a huge part.

But there is a mindset change too. I remember in 2005 or 2006 changing my chainset for the Fred Whitton to one of those new fangled compacts AND switching to a 12-27 block. Got a lot of “you going soft?” teasing. And then the day after it was back in the shed to take the compact off and put the 53/39 chainset and 12-23 block back on because the compact and big cassette was just for crazy hard days. And I wasn’t even racing by then, so not sure what I was thinking.

I think my first proper road bike in 1987 or there abouts was 52/42 up front and a 12-21 7spd block and that was considered pretty easy gearing.

I suspect people use to ride the stuff the pros rode with absolutely zero consideration for whether it was the most appropriate tool for the job

a bit like they do just now.

True. The majority of recreational cyclists (meaning those who don’t race but including those who like to “make progress”) have never needed 52/42 or 53/39 and I’m sure that for a lot of us 50/34 is “overgeared”. I am a lot older, slower and weaker than I was back in the 90s and even my 46/34 11-34 Diverge gearing is on the high side for me. There is no way I’m going to be pushing 46×11 ever. That’s over 40kph and if I hit that these days it’ll be downhill and freewheeling. I’m eyeing up “modern” 1x gravel bike groupsets, something like 40×50 would be nice!

True. The majority of recreational cyclists (meaning those who don’t race but including those who like to “make progress”) have never needed 52/42 or 53/39 and I’m sure that for a lot of us 50/34 is “overgeared”

I don’t know, I’m “That’s a good FTP if you weren’t 95kg” fit. And I can hold ~24mph in a group which is 50:13 @85rpm.  I can sustain about 110rpm so there’s headroom still, but it’s close enough that even slight downhills start top feel fatiguing spining to keep up, and not enough that I’d not consider one of these newfangled 52-36 chainsets especially as there’s not really any compromise anymore with 11-32 12s cassettes.

That reminds me, I need to swap gears on the track bike as accreditation gets competitive tomorrow and my current nice spiny gear that’s nice to hide in a group in won’t cut it anymore.

Isn’t this simply just a ‘they didn’t know any better’ with a bit of ‘they hadn’t quite developed the right technology yet’ and a big dollop of cultural inertia thrown in?

Plus look at the mad fuss roadies made over disc brakes when they decided they were the equivalent of turning your wheels into lethal buzz-saws. There’s something about riding on the road regularly that turns people’s brains into weird, atavistic mush. If they’d had square wheels, they’d have stuck with them for decades because that’s the way things have always been.

But mostly, they just didn’t know any better.