Originally Posted by
john m flores
You are viewing the past through rose-colored Oakleys, I think. 50+ years ago, plenty of beginners were cross-chaining their 2x drivetrains and making them crunch as they shifted under load. There are myriad examples of ads from the 60s and 70s with cross-chained bicycles in them. A very small percentage of them fell in love with cycling but most dropped out.
True. And working in bike shops in the late '70's and the '80's, I eventually noticed that the bikes brought in because the chain had broken usually had the derailleurs positioned for the large/large combination.
And to this day, when anyone starts a thread about "skipping gears" (I.e., pedals jerking forward under the pressure of taking off from a stop or climbing a hill), I first suspect a worn small rear cog or two, the rider having spent lots of time riding in the seductively easy middle-or-small front/small rear combination. Which, after about 20 or 30 posts, usually turns out to be correct.
And now, with e-bikes becoming ubiquitous, worn-out small rear cogs are about to become an even more common problem.