-----Original Message----- From: Jeff Slotkin <jeffslotkin@home.com> To: Van Remortel's <vrgeckos@ite.net> Cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Date: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 10:23 PM Subject: Re: [CR]Jack Taylor on E-Bay - Alpine Gearing???
>At 08:21 AM 3/8/2001 +1000, Van Remortel's wrote:
>>That IS alpine gearing! a 24t in the front with a 28 or 30ish rear??? Man
>>I could climp up anything with that! Looks like a nice Taylor other than
>>some of the funky part choices... Gotta love those fenders, anyone have a
>>source for a current clone like hammered Honjo? I saw a recent post but
>>those are the smoothies...
>
>That's half step plus granny, assuming that's five or six cogs back there.
>Jeff Slotkin
>TheLocalSpoke
>Goose Creek, SC
The problem is the dual meaning of Alpine. Van is thinking "alpine" = mountain capable, whereas Jeff is using "alpine" as a classic chainwheel/freewheel shifting pattern. Alpine gearing was a 52-40 front and the classic 5 speed 14-28 freewheel, and required double shifting to find the next gear in the sequence. Gave you a 100 inch high and a 38 inch low, which didn't help that many people climb mountains unless you were in pretty good shape. Half step granny was another classic pattern, along with racing crossover (52-42 front with a roll o' dimes freewheel). It was the rise of mountain bikes that inspired derailers able to shift reliably on the now common 28-42-52 front chainrings. Old front derailers and chains had trouble finding the middle chainring.
Tom Adams, Kansas City