At 2:33 AM -0400 5/22/08, Tim Victor wrote:
>What seems relevant to this list is the question that someone
>posed regarding this quote and how common the attitude was:
>
>"For a mountain stage I would do 23, 21, 19, 17 etc. or 25, 23,
>21, 19, 17. If there was something nuts in Italy like the Tre Cime
>Lavaredo or the Mortirolo then I would go to a 28. I never used
>even-numbered climbing cogs other than the 28. Never. Not
>that I am superstitious; I just hate how every time I looked at
>even numbers for climbing cogs my palms would get sweaty.
>Odd only."
>
>That's interesting to me because my favorite cluster by far has
>long been a Regina 23/21/19/17/15/13. I've been using it forever
>(and it's just as quiet coasting as while pedaling) but never
>guessed that there might be some kind of old racer thing about
>never using even-toothed cogs for climbing.
>
>Is anyone familiar with this tradition?
If it is a tradition, it is a relatively new one. Many a Tour de France has been won on even-toothed cogs. A typical racing freewheel in the 1950s was 14-16-18-20-22. Hugo Koblet used that (and many others, he changed gear ratios almost daily) to win the Tour de France in 1951 - see the article on his bike in Vintage Bicycle Quarterly Vol. 2, No. 2.
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
140 Lakeside Ave #C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.bikequarterly.com