you have probably past me numerous times...im the one with my head down sucking air like a girl up some fairly small hills...:o

:roflmao: :p :p

This one is the worst...no photoshopping required to visualize how bad I would look lol..

http://www.brunswickcyclingclub.com/.../clothing.html

Im off to the gym again in a minute. Do any of you boys spend much time in the weights room on the legs?

Nope... none.
No gym could help my chicken legs :D

What avatar? Oh, that one.:D No, they are French riders so they'd be snail buckets on their heads. Its the 1986 Tour de France team time trial so theres no elbow steering. Thats Yvon Madiot in the French champ jersey, Charly Mottet and Laurent Fignon.

I wonder if you could put a current day pro rider on one of those 86 machines and still be right up there??

I reckon for sure. The bike Indurain rode in the early/mid '90s was about 9kg, which I think was about the same weight as the 'drilled out' bike Merckx rode in the '70s. Also, they all rode light tubulars, so the wheel/tyre combo was a reasonable weight. It's not like they were hauling around 11kg bikes. Some guys used Reynolds 753 steel, which was a reasonable weight.

Yeah thats what I was thinking. It seems like every year frame manufacturers are saying 30% more stiffness.....well wouldnt all this whiz bang technology make a huge time difference....doesnt seem too?

TT's - No. Aero bars save minutes in a long time trial, plus the newer wheels are much more aero than the 86 ones.

For road races I'll have to say 'sort of'. Most of those old bikes weighed around 8.5-10kilos. Most pro bikes now are 6.8-8 kilos. Plus the frames are much stiffer nowadays. In a hilly race like Liege Bastongne Liege these things could make a difference. Paris Roubaix or Paris Tours they'd probably make no difference at all, so it would depend a bit on the course. More important IMO is ergopower and STI. Most of the bikes in the mid 80s had friction shifters, so you'd have to sit down to change gear, where with the new stuff you can change while virtually sprinting off the seat. Missed gear changes would possibly cost the old school bike rider the win when the chips are down and the attacks happen. I'm only talking degrees though. You can still ride a mid 80's road bike as fast as a new bike.

Then again, Georgio Furlan won Milan San Remo with downtube shifters in 1993 (index shifting though, not friction) against almost a whole field riding Ergopower or STI. He attacked a big group on the Poggio hill near the finish. Actually, he totally pwned them in one of the most frightening displays of the power of EPO in the history of cycling. Frank Vandenbrouke got second in a Tour stage a year or two later with downtube shifters when the newer shifters were even more prevalent. These two stand out as they were among the last few riders in my memory.to change from downtube gear levers to the new shift systems.

You are seriously a walking cycling-pedia :) :D Thanks for that lesson :)

One question out of left field (although relates to EPO reference I guess). Is stuart O'Grady racing clean in your opinion or too hard to tell?

Vegie is the word you are looking for. Anyway, someone may come along and say 'classic1 you are talking through your blurter'. And they might be right.

As for the left field question I refuse point blank to post potentially defamantry information on the interweb.

Yes fair enough lol. I just found it really bizarre that the rider in the US (was it de luca or something) who came out and said he witnessed a top top top aussie rider injecting etc etc and the very next day O'Grady went out of his way to get on TV and denouce the guy and say he was an idiot...it was just a bit weird IMO.

Matt decannio. Can't remember which Aussie he accused. I remember O'Grady saying he'd never heard of him, which is probably fair enough. Some of these seppos ride for one year on a third rate continental US pro team getting a bike, jersey and petrol money and think they are friggin Eddy Merckx. Most of them probably couldn't win A grade at Carnegie. Decannio was admittedly a bit better than that, but he wasn't a champion by any stretch of the imagination.

Big Migs the man. I love all those people who say he was a gear masher. They've never watched any film of him imo. He wouldn't rev quite as much as Armstrong but he was no Jan Ullrich either.

I like theories :) Let it all out Nev....lol :p

Yeah him - decannio. (where did I get de luca from? that name has been on my mind a lot. weird)

Im not sure what to believe about the sport right now. Probably that the top guys are just pure class and some of the rest get a little help to try to win a few things they otherwise would never have a chance in.

Clipless pedals came out about then as well didn't they? I read somewhere that the first guy to use them in the TDF won it.

yeah, what a freak. How the hell did someone 6ft2 and not all that skinny (compared to the 'real' climbers) climb so well?!

Hinault in 85.

more to do with sponsorship than a performance advantage. LOOK obviously targeted the top guys, and LeMond (Hinault's "buddy" at the time) was well known for ALWAYS wanting to try new stuff.

I actually haven't raced with BBN for a couple of years (not enough time spent on bike to make it worthwhile) and when I did it was at the arse end of D grade :lol: But I still wear the kit somethimes though - no point in chucking it out!

My bro goes pretty well, but he really doesn't ride regularly at the moment. Climbs pretty well & has a good jump in a sprint too - the bastid!!:)

that reminds me; has anyone get their Ride handy with the 'retro review' of Merckx's bike? I think it had the weight of it

Any hints as to which year? Just looked through all my 2006 Rides and it ain't in there unless it wasn't a "Retro Review".

I've got a vague feeling there was something about Merckx's bike in Bicycling Australia, but I could be wrong.

How friggin old is katty watt?? ....and she is still spanking almost all comers!!!

Is she that American who raced for Oz and imploded at some race meet like the Commonwealth Games or something?