>If the professional racers (and trickle down effect through amateurs and
>wannabees)
>thought there was an aero advantage and / or a center of gravity issue with
>bar mounts I can see that spelling the end of bar mounted bottles.
>
>
>Pete Geurds
>Douglassville, Pa
One wonders whether center of gravity issues become more important as racers adopted bigger gears and started to sprint more out of the saddle?
The French randonneur bikes always have been somewhat concerned with center of gravity issues, as is witnessed by their tendency to place waterbottle cage braze-ons as far down as possible. (It is quite a stretch to reach the bottle on a 61 cm 1952 Herse.) And those guys did not sprint out of the saddle!
As for aero, it would be instructive to see triathletes using bar-mounted bottles for aerodynamic (fairing) advantages, while road racers got rid of them because of their aerodynamic detriment. (That said, I don't _think_ aerodynamics of cycling were much of an issue before 1970 - beyond the obvious "the lower the rider gets, the faster they go.")
For the transition to downtube bottles, it seems to have been gradual:
In the 1920s/1930s, many racers used two bottles, both on the
handlebars. In the 1940s/1950s you often see one bottle on the bars,
one on the downtube. Later, when they moved to a single bottle
(shorter races? more feed zones? drinking fell from fashion?), the
accepted location became the down tube, it seems.
--
Jan Heine, Seattle
Editor/Publisher
Vintage Bicycle Quarterly
http://www.mindspring.com/