On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 2:47 PM, ehbusch <ehbusch@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Perhaps you didn't see any down slope stems at six days because they are
> longer races and you are on the track for longer periods of time. The
> regular stems and bars make for a more comfortable riding position.
> The bars beeing taped all the way up up might be that when a rider hand
> slings his partner into the race he quite often would have his hand up near
> the stem for better balance. Riders also might want to ride a few laps with
> thier hands on the tops of the bars for a change of position.
> The half bar tape thing was very popular at T-Town, late 70's early 80's,
> but mostly with match sprinters, who also used sloping stems. Down and dirty
> for three laps, no need to change the placement of your hands..Showing more
> shiny chrome was the in thing.....
>
Those would all be good reasons for comfortable fully taped bars at Six Days as you say. But this was also true at amateur league night where ever I went over there in Britain, Belgium, and France, at league night where all the races are short devils, shorter handicap sprints (de facto kilo races), etc. In other words, a short distance racing schedule just like the typical night at Kenosha, Dick Lane, Major Taylor, and probably T-Town although I haven't been there--only seen the pictures. So the difference is not the distance of the racing or the comfort necessary but the difference in national fashions.
Perhaps there were sloping stems on the track in Britain in the 70s (I wasn't over there then), but if so there was not sign of them on track bikes in the late 80s. Track bikes last unless you crunch them, and many of the bikes we used in the late 80s had been in use on the track for one, two, or three decades, and they had 1A stems that they'd had for years and years. And you didn't see sloping stems in the used market there either. You did see vintage chromed Cinelli adjustable track stems sometimes (horizontal ones)
So it seems that the sloping stem was a fashion that didn't make it to Britain. I remember asking about it and getting eyerolls; it did appear to be a national preference difference in bike set-up. My experience in Belgium and France is spotty but didn't see them there either. Never got to tracks in Italy or Japan so maybe that's where you find them other than the US (?). This thread makes me curious about bike set up at tracks back then in Australia and Tazmania.
As for the need to get lower with the down sloping stem for the U.S. 1970s match sprinters, as you describe...that makes sense especially if they are using a different bike for the match sprint events. But from the photos I've looked at from that great period, it looks like riders were often using the same bike and same low position for the longer points races that they used for the match sprint. Maybe some switched only the bar and stem for the match sprint to get lower? In photos of points races at US tracks in the 70s you see enough down sloped stems to make me doubt that they were seen as special equipment for the match sprint. So it seems plausible to me that in the 70s when people rode taller frames, some used the down sloped stem to get lower. In the 80s when smaller frames were the thing, you didn't need a down sloped stem to get low. I raced with my bar 6" lower than my saddle height with a Cinelli 1A stem and it was as low as I'd have been on a purpose built kilo bike but was still comfortable for the (long) madison races we had sometimes. The pro Six Day rider bikes I mentioned also had the kind of low bar to saddle; their comfortable Six Day set up didn't mean a high bar. Tony Doyle's saddle was easily 6" above his 1A.
Mitch Harris
Little Rock Canyon, Utah, USA