Originally Posted by s70rguy

Gingergreen, don't make the mistake of assuming that I never raced in the hills. Better still, don't assume anything. Look at how the pro's rode 20 years ago. Anyway, my point was (1) that (when you had no choice but downtube shifters) you better have the skill. And by that I mean anticipating what's coming more than anything else, so you can make the shift while you still can. (2) When the ergo's came into fashion, where I raced you saw many people make that mistake: the race is speeding up, it's easy to shift, so you shift to a bigger gear. The opposite is what I learned when i started racing: let your leg speed do the accelerating (or decelerating) as much as you can. Postpone shifting as long as you can. The result is called 'souplesse'.