Group, If I may, the old Velodrome in East Point, Georgia was/is a concrete track poured with a "special" fast setting mix with the joints perpendicular to the direction of travel. Nelson Vails (and Mark Gorski) visited and raced the track when my ex & I worked Friday nights as volunteers there in the '80s. Nelson said it was the roughest (worst) track he had ever been on. The locals complained of detent steering after part of a season of racing. Dan Mazzeo Morrison, CO
-----Original Message----- From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of emeneff@earthlink.net Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2007 8:00 PM To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: [CR]Why were there Pista headsets ???
Dear Listees,
I usually agree with Chuck Schmidt on most things, but I would like to suggest that the idea that tracks / velodromes are smooth surfaced and pleasant riding is certainly not always the case.
Chuck wrote :
>Track bike headsets lead a pretty sheltered life. No rain and mud, no
>bumps or potholes, not many miles. Smaller than the road headset and
>smaller bearings to boot. Never heard the myth of the track headset
>being stronger the the road headset... wouldn't be necessary for the
>track headset to be stronger than a road headset in my mind, in fact
>the opposite
There are bumpy and rough tracks, and it is especially the case with wooden tracks where the boards are laid accross the direction of travel. If you ever ride one of those and the track is not in great condition you get the feeling that your fillings are going to rattle out of your teeth.
Old-timers told me that even when a track seemed relatively smooth at lower speeds it could turn into a real handful when riding behind a pacer at high speeds with the greater G-forces in the turns. Not just small bumps and vibrations - if the transitions from the straights to the turns were abrupt the rider had to deal with that force, too.
And that leaves potholes - now what track might have potholes ?
Anyone here ever ridden on the Kissena oval in NYC before they resurfaced it ?
Finally, it might seem strange but I believe that part of the reason for the smaller stack height was to allow for a longer headtube/shorter fork which supposedly would yield a stiffer front-end. Seems like the small (6 or 7 mm ) difference wouldn't add up to much, it was probably another one of those tiny details that supposedly separated the "top" builders from the also-rans. I believe this idea was why builders started to profile the underside of the fork crown to provide minimal tire clearance. While sometimes done simply for looks, this does accomplish the same thing as a track headset - it lengthens the headtube and shortens the fork.
The tiny weight difference between road and track headsets would certainly not be a concern with a typical sprint, kilo, or all-arounder frame where stiffness was usually the main goal and thicker tubing and extra reinforcements are common. But it might have come into play on a pursuit or record-attempt machine.
Mike Fabian San Francisco, CA Where, ironically, the site of one of the old velodromes now sits under the DMV office.