Road Cycling - Old School Road Cycling........

A few of my teamates and I were reminiscing about the old days, and some of the goofy cycling stuff that was out at the time. Any one here have any memories of stuff they loved/hated/laughed at?

I remember cannondale came out with a water bottle/cage combo that used velcro soley to hold the bottle in place, the bottle had the soft side all around it, and the cage was basically a curved plastic trough with the hook side of the velcro. HA! Like thier ad says... Legendary Innovation!

Skid Lids, Bio Pace.......... ?

It would seem that I am not old enough...

Brendon

How about tire savers that attached to the brake mounting bolt. The wire was supposed to barely clear you tires and prevent any debris from sticking to the tire and causing a flat. Rhode Gear, I think it was, made a water bottle/cage kit where the water bottle slid into a notch on the cage. Every time you hit a bump, the water bottle would bounce out!

My first road bike had a water bottle mounted to the handle bars...clamps on each side of the stem with the bottle in the middle. It wasn't a proper road racing bike though.
Then I remember the aero style Profil bottles that were around for a while....I saw a guy with one a few months ago.
What I hated was having to nail cleats to the bottom of shoes!

remember those brake levers they had on the drop bars so you could stop from an upright position. If you used them you pretty much needed to adjust your brake cable after every ride.

Then there's the stuff that came up and is still around that's kind of old skool. Like Camelbacks. I just replaced my early 90's vintage camelback with a new "classic" version. Classic my ass! Nice mesh shoulder straps instead of the half inch nylon. Easy to get the bladder in and out. Extra storage. Pshaw.

Anyone remember Cadex?

I remember cannondale came out with a water bottle/cage combo that used velcro soley to hold the bottle in place, the bottle had the soft side all around it, and the cage was basically a curved plastic trough with the hook side of the velcro. HA! Like thier ad says... Legendary Innovation!

:lol: :lol: I have that! I don't think I have the holder but I still have the bottle. It's a small bottle and I think it dates back to the early 1980s. I had it when I got my Ross 10spd way back when.

Jay

The "U" brake! 'member that thing? I do 'cause I got a bike wit one! OK - that's more old school mt cycling.

How about Powercam cranks? What about that cable thingy that fastened to a belt that went around your waist and the other end went on the stem? What about SeatShifter or whatever the h*ll that thing was called that allowed you to move your saddle fore/aft while riding! Is my triathlon background showing thru ;-)

And Bikestream and other water-bottle contraptions that mounted behind the saddle and had long tubes running up to the handlebars for hands-free drinking.

And what about wheel covers! Uni is the name I remember but I think J-Disc made some, too.

Anyone remember the Houdaille Powercam?

How about tire savers that attached to the brake mounting bolt. The wire was supposed to barely clear you tires and prevent any debris from sticking to the tire and causing a flat.

HEY, my husband swears by those things. And with the commuting he does with the trash on the roads around here, he should know!

Anyone got a pair or two you want to sell. I'd love to get him two sets!

Anyone remember the Houdaille Powercam?

Houdaille?? Who dere?

HEY, my husband swears by those things. And with the commuting he does with the trash on the roads around here, he should know!

Anyone got a pair or two you want to sell. I'd love to get him two sets!
Hey, I checked in he old spare parts box and, lo & behold, I found two pairs of these things! You want 'em and they're yours. PM me with your name and address and I'll ship 'em to you in a couple of days.

Ya, my old Vetta helmet. About 5 lbs of plastic.

I remember ordering my Vitus aluminum bike with Shimano 600 SIS and the salesman had to talk me out of Biopace. In the end he said to try the round rings for a month and if I didn't like them he'd swap. Of course, he was right.

I still have a Hite Rite on my old Cannondale MTB (3.0 frame, no suspension, Suntour XC-M grouppo, and a Scott aerobar!!!). For those who are unfamiliar, it attaches to the seatpost and the seat QR. When you are on technical stuff, you undo the QR and sit down, lowering the saddle out of the way, and relock the QR. When you need the saddle again, just open the QR and the saddle pops back up to its normal height again. I never used it for that, I just put it on to keep the casual crook from boosting my saddle. I also used to run Tioga Farmer John tires!!!

DEMON

i'll second the vetta helmet where you could get a different colored mesh covering so you can change colors of your helmet when you got sick of it.

also, i remember a bike company that sold a frame that had holes cut out of the frame to lighten it. it looked like it had bullet holes piercing the frame.

I remember one year someone drilled holes in crankarms and sold them for the lightweight cross country racers. Not sure if it was a roadie thing, but it never caught on for some reason.

The "U" brake! 'member that thing? I do 'cause I got a bike wit one! OK - that's more old school mt cycling.


i have an 88 trek 850 with a U brake mounted on the underside of the chainstays. the U brake works better than the cantilever brake on the front!!!

also, U-brakes are still very much alive in the BMX world!

Then there's the stuff that came up and is still around that's kind of old skool. Like Camelbacks. I just replaced my early 90's vintage camelback with a new "classic" version. Classic my ass! Nice mesh shoulder straps instead of the half inch nylon. Easy to get the bladder in and out. Extra storage. Pshaw.

Anyone remember Cadex?


Aaaah Cadex. For sale in PAris, France!

What genius came up with Biopace? That was awful. Tubeless tires were soooo delicate in the 60's and 70's. I remember I once went touring on my Schwinn in the early 70's. I had one of those 5 lb surplus bags, and a HEAVY cotton tent, and a bunch of other junk. Went up into NH with all that stuff. Thought I was going to die.

Hey, I had one of those velcro bottles on my cannondale and on my gitane in the 80s! And I thought it was waaaaaay cool.

I also had a 'flickstand' from Rhode Gear. It's a little thing that flicks down from the downtube and holds the front wheel in place.

Aah, the Pedersen Self-Energizing cantilever brakes.

generator lights dim when you stop add extra friction to the ride

Anyone old enough to remember the Skid Lid helmet? This was back in the late '70s when everyday riders were starting to think about wearing head protection.

The Skid Lid tried to please people who wanted to feel good about protecting themselves without having to wear a big, ugly Bell helmet. The Skid Lid was sort of a plastic hat brim with four foam-lined plastic extensions that covered the head from front, back and sides without meeting at the top. There was lots of skull exposed to sharp objects up there, plus the extensions were not really energy absorbing.

The chin straps and visor were kind of cool, though.

condor

Condor, you beat me to it, I have been searching for a picture of the skid lid. but I cannot find one.

I used to have one of those Alexi Grewal signature Cinelli leather crash hats, it was flourescent yellow and black leather. I crashed in it during a non-uscf sanctioned race. Which is why I was wearing it, big mistake. I should have worn my big Q-tip looking Specialized with the lycra cover.

Indurain used to wear a leather crash hat, with the reynoldsbanesto colors too I remember.

Here's a thread from almost a year ago with some comments about the Skid Lid.

http://64.191.20.129/showthread.php?t=18400&highlight=skid+lid

Is THIS a skid lid?
http://www.greglemond.com/site/gallery_gfx/pix/roubaix2l.jpg
This is Greg Lemond after the '85 Paris to Roubaix

Brendon

Is THIS a skid lid?
http://www.greglemond.com/site/gallery_gfx/pix/roubaix2l.jpg
This is Greg Lemond after the '85 Paris to Roubaix

Brendon


Nope. That's a leather racing helmet of the type sometimes called a hairnet.

Skid Lids had a kind of X shaped vent on the top and a short visor. I have a friend who was still using one as of a couple of years ago.

i saw someone at last years MS ride wearing that, i was like what the ****

I saw someone with one of those infernal contraptions on tonight. He was leaving the same place that I work, which worries me to a degree I can't begin to put words to.

DEMON

Skid lid pics

First, stolen from http://www.veloasia.com/vn_ontour.html, a picture of Dan Bright in his vintage Skid lid.

And this one, from http://www.geocities.com/clearants/bicycle.html

You could own it for only $20.00. It is being sold as "a collectable" not a safety device. The visor seems to be AWOL.

biopace chainrings - yeah right!

Does anyone remember the leather straps that we used to wrap around the hub to keep them clean?

Wool jerseys? Oh, wait! I wore one of those today!

I'm not old enough to remember these things, but my bike is! A '72 Schwinn Super Sport. Came with an old generator and front light; everyhting taped together. No braze-ons, plastic pump pegs, stem shifters (love 'em!), suicide levers (them too!), and vinyl bar tape - now that was a lousy idea! Cloth all the way!

Profile Aero 4 aerobars--I have them hanging on the wall so somebody can ask me what they are.

Biopace chainrings: have some in the junk box. Plan on making clock with them that only rarely has the right time.

Still have Uni discs and the Campy aero water bottle on the time trial bike. That's a fast bike, but I am still a slug.

Still have Pedersen SEs and Suntour SEs on one tandem.

Have three Avocet Altimeter 50 computers that stopped working, and the totally cool 3D contour boxes in which they came.

Yes, I remember the Powercam cranks and Scott Dickson.

Have Cateye Solar II (with HRM adapter) and Solar I computers around here somewhere. One or two Alfredo Binda Extra toe straps, and an original set of Look pedals (the white ones with all the corners) that must be nearly 20 years old now (?).

Maillard Helicomatic hubs? Don't be silly. The hub flanges were too thin, and they all broke. Still have some of the freewheels, though. THEY'RE hanging on the wall too, but hardly anybody notices the helical splines on the inside.

Maillard Helicomatic hubs? Don't be silly. The hub flanges were too thin, and they all broke. Still have some of the freewheels, though. THEY'RE hanging on the wall too, but hardly anybody notices the helical splines on the inside.

I still have a working Helicomatic hub.

The original Oakleys that are bigger than most ski goggles

How about the flickstand? It was a little wire contraption that would fold down from the the down tube and capture the front tire to hold it straight. You could lean your bike without it rolling away.

Ah, this thread brings back memories...

How about the old Bailen (or was it MSR) helmet that had a hard shell on the outside and the inside! Yep, two, count 'em two hard shells!
What about the old Bell Tourlite with the adjustable visor, the V-1 Pro (hardshell hairnet), or the Darth Vader inspired Stratos?
Avocet polypropylene jerseys? (My very first one.)
Sheepskin saddle covers - thank god I never tried one of those!
Grab On foam handle bar grips
AeroLite pedals - Came out about the same time as Look. I bought a pair, then exchanged them for the old black and white Look pedals.
Gloves with the cotton mesh back.
Thread-on 6 speed freewheels.
Cannondale handlebar bags.

One of my first bikes wasn’t a road bike but a dragster. It a three speed t-bar gear shift on the top tube, which resembled a cars automatic T-bar. It had a super long seat and sissy bar with a padded head rest. Cool. :eek:

CHEERS.

Mark

One of my first bikes wasn’t a road bike but a dragster. It a three speed t-bar gear shift on the top tube, which resembled a cars automatic T-bar. It had a super long seat and sissy bar with a padded head rest. Cool. :eek:

CHEERS.

MarkVery cool. Late 60's vintage Schwinn Apple/Orange/Cherry Krate - always wanted one of those, but just had the regular Stingray...

How about the flickstand? It was a little wire contraption that would fold down from the the down tube and capture the front tire to hold it straight. You could lean your bike without it rolling away.Quite a coincidence - I was just cleaning out the pantry the other day and found one of these that I was given and never mounted brand new in the box...

HEY, my husband swears by those things. And with the commuting he does with the trash on the roads around here, he should know!

Anyone got a pair or two you want to sell. I'd love to get him two sets!

I'm with you. They were simply wire with plastic tubing that would lightly rub against the wheel but I never flatted with those things. Maybe it was all in my head. . . .

Well this wasn't a road bike but I had one of those Yamaha full suspension BMX bikes. That thing was the **** in '75!

Does anyone remember the leather straps that we used to wrap around the hub to keep them clean?




Yup, shure do! Did you have the ones with the little reflector on it? Wow, now that little addition was a real lifesaver!!


Back to waterbottles.....Back in the mid-70's on my moto mirage I had this bottle that was styro insulated w/glass liner. Thing must've weighed 3lbs and only held about 10oz of water. Stupid. OH, and it had a very special "sprinkler" cap you could snap in place to shower yourself with those 10oz of water.


OldsCOOL

I just thought of another item: the old Grip Shift system that attached to the ends of road bars, and you shifted by rotating the plastic knobs...

I used to have one of those big Bell helmets. I wore it for two months or so (had just started riding, and my father gave it to me) but then got something lighter and less clunky looking. My ex-husband wouldn't let me get rid of it and always wore it himself. Ummmm....OK.

Skid lids and leather hairnets! Good stuff . . .

There were a ton of goofy GeeGaws for MTBs in the late '80s. Remember roller cam brakes? They were just before the U brake, and there was no converting your bike if you had them because the bosses were in the wrong place. Fun things to adjust. Or the "quadruple" kit which had you tap holes on the inside of your inner ring to add a fourth ring for those special moments. Pre-indexing of course. I also remember a battery powered front derailleur . . .

Big, 2" thick Spenco gel seat covers?

old school bar tape that was really more like tape...

My first road bike had a water bottle mounted to the handle bars...clamps on each side of the stem with the bottle in the middle. It wasn't a proper road racing bike though.
Then I remember the aero style Profil bottles that were around for a while....I saw a guy with one a few months ago.
What I hated was having to nail cleats to the bottom of shoes!

I still have, and use an aero bottle;