Anyone else got a copy of Tour de France/Tour de Force, by James Startt? If so, open to page 28, and look carefully at the picture of Octave Lapize as he pushes his bike up a pass in the Pyrenees in 1910. (Look at the road condition, too........cart track would be a kind description).
Anyway, his right calf hides some of the drivetrain, but from the chain angles it seems that he has either: A derailleur on the back, or A VERY large rear cog.......if the front chainring is about a 44, then the cog must be about a 30 to 32'er.
Do others see this the same way, or is there some other explanation? Back in those days, riders would often have a different size cog on each side of the rear hub and flip the wheel around, but does anyone know if they were both fixed cogs, both freewheel cogs, or a combination of both?
To aid people without a copy of this book, I
scanned the page/pic, and uploadedit to the web:
http://www.imagestation.com/
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The Bicyclist formerly known as Neill Currie, Portland, Me 04102, USA.
The Mountain Goat website is at:
http://www.geocities.com/
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