Many of the better steel road bikes of the 1970's and 1980's (Raleigh Professional, Colnago, Masi, etc.) had decorative cutouts on the bottom side of the bottom bracket shell. First of all, what was the purpose (if any) of these cutouts, and secondly, how do you maintain the bottom bracket on such bikes? Seems like an awful lot of water and road junk has an easy way into the working parts of the bottom bracket.

TSapp