----- Original Message ----- From: "flying_scot" <flying_scot@btopenworld.com> To: <> Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2003 4:25 AM Subject: Re: [CR]Old vs New
> >
> Next Sunday, course DD25/1 - a 25 miler, and a drag strip to boot ! - the
> A90 dual-carriageway south of Dundee (Home of Bruce Robbins) or better
still
> my own local clubs favourite, AB25/4 again a 25, but north of Aberdeen and
> marginally hilly - always windy - and a gear changers paradise.
I knew you'd pick Scotland as the venue.... I'll take any hill you throw at me, but wind... especially North of Scotland wind.... urrgghhh. Does this mean that you Scots eschewed Sturmey-Archer's products well in advance of those foreigners living in say Lincolnshire? I suspect you did. Then again it's not exactly flat around Nottingham... were Cyclo-Benelux gears reprobate in the staff cycle shed at the S-A works?
Did "Cycling" magazine in the 1950s ever tackle the great hub gear vs. derailleur debate? It would be interesting to read back issues at this time to see. By the early '50s most of the top-end British machines seemed to favour derailleurs already, or at least the model was usually shown thus equipped with S-A gears as an option. In fact the only company that never showed a derailleur on anything they made until c. 1957 was.... Raleigh-Rudge-Humber and that's because, of course, they owned S-A.
Don't
> forget, there's a strict all-black clothing rule in force and the
obligatory
> Alpaca jacket, harder to find than a rare S-A hub).
No problem. I've leave my custom-made lycra body suit made to resemble a yellow S-A box at home then.
Peter Kohler Washington, DC USA, off to take his '48 Lenton Clubman on her "maiden" ride