Originally Posted by okane

First, I think that back in the day, few people rode in wet weather. No proof mind you, but I'll bet the number of people who commuted to work on a bike was many times smaller comparted to today, so wet weather braking was not much of a consideration. Biking was recreation not transportation. Only a nutcase would not have sense enough not to come out of the rain.

Secondly, I still occasionally see ads on CL touting heavy bikes, as in, “this is a good heavy bike not like those flimsy lightweights." I imagine that in the past aluminum was considered not strong enough by the uninformed.

I remember from my youth that a Schwinn Phantom was a real bike and we didn’t want one of those English bikes with skinny tires! For a period of time Schwinn lightweights (sic) out sold many others because there were considered good, solid heavy bikes that would not fall apart like them foreign jobs.

So if heavy is good, bring on those steel wheels.