richardsachs@juno.com writes:
> ...and the masi bicycles that were
> race-ready in the 70s are useless in today's
> racing environment.
Gilbert Anderson writes:
>I think with proper training ( what you see before you son is a friction
>downtube shifter that operates like this; back and forth) and education an
>early Masi would be extremely competitive in actual competition against
>modern equipment.
I think you're both right. I think Richie's point is that there is a cutoff where a classic becomes a liability and at the higher levels of racing, it would be. A couple of years ago I'd occassionally dust off my old Paramount for the hell of it and show up for fast group rides. I never had a problem keeping up even when using a 52/49 and a 13-26 for the hilly routes in my area. I could ride at the front, even on the climbs. On road sign sprints, the downtube shifters were a definite liability, sometimes I wished for more gear choices, but they were wants, not needs. But in a race environment, I'd rather have the modern gear especially if you contested sprints. Today, I'm off the back on my thoroughly modern 16 pound (steel) wonderbike. Twice as many gears and 7 pounds less bike weight don't make up for my lack of training or the 20 or 30-odd pounds of cottage cheese I've spread over my body. Like that guy who rides that Trek says, "it's not about the bike" and I had that proved to me again last night on the MTB by some guys on singlespeeds.
Cheers!
Don Ferris
Littleton, CO