repechage

I worked for a bike shop in the middle 80's after a departure from 1979 to 1984.
Things I saw, not quite in order:

126mm was the width, 120 was passe.
Araya aero section clincher rims were popular for training, strong, no polishing required, and Specialized Trubos or Turbo S's were the training tire.
Bennetto bar tape or the new Cinelli padded stuff.
"Miami Vice" paint, somebody forgot how to set up a spray gun and "splatter" paint was in. The unhappy accident.
The Turbo saddle
The Trubo model bike
The Trubo trainer.
Rreliance on "turbo"
The acceptance of Shimano by racers. "SIS" aka "Sissy shifting"
The arrogance of Campagnolo (unfortunate)
Mountain bikes outsold road bikes.
Attractive Women discover cycling as exercise, that was a good thing.
Investment cast lugs are the common denominator.
Chrome on the chainstay
Under the chainstay shift cable routing
The braze on front derailleur.
Love of braze ons.
Double water bottle mounts.
Clement had competition, Vittoria.
Look pedals arrive. Shoes are behind the curve for a while and rip apart.
The acceptance of the Fit Kit.
The introduction and withdrawal of Campagnolo Delta brakes.
The end of the Suntour slant parallelogram patent.
8 speeds are needed in racing.

Quit the bike shop before the end of the decade, they just would not pay enough.
One could make more and have a more flexible schedule in fast food.
And had collected enough attractive women who needed bikes maintained to keep me happy.

big chainring 

I was feeling so good, then I read everyone reminiscing about the 80's. All my biking memories are in the 70's! I'm going to another forum - Good Night.

Chombi

Yes, I remember the whole "aero" trend that hit hard in the 80's There was aero stuff for rich and poor with Modolo, Campy and Shimano coming up with new and sometimes less than succesful designs. Remember all those aero shaped bottles that came out from so many manufacturers?? (A fix for a non-existing problem that was more of a problem in the end because it was hard to handle those goofy shaped bottles when you're on the road putting in a hard effort on a hot day.
I remember my younger brother's first real full size bike from Motobecane (Aero II?) with aero shaped tubing (made from cheapy 1020 High tensile tubing, IIRC). It sure looked real nice and flashy, but it came with the crappiest components from Shimano, starting with the weird front freewheel system which was topped off with the ultra crap Adamas aero components that never held adjustment and eventually just sort of all fell apart on him. Everybody sure jumped into the aero fad without taking a good look on how deep the pool was! Peugeot also released their own Aero styled PH12 Centenary bike which for some reason, was also made up with lowish spec materials and components (You'd think that Peugeot would have made the bike more upmarket as it celebrates their 100 year anniversary as a bike maker) although quite a bit better than my brother's Motobecane.

Chombi

RFC

Like cars, I think that our individual historical reference points are related to our personal experiences. Also, for me, intellectually, the transition points in history are the most interesting.

My first road bike was a 1972 green Schwinn Continental that I literally road the sh*t out of during high school, undergrad, and law school. I then traded it for more than the new price in 1982 to my good friend, Chris Sanderup, the owner of Cycleworks in Lincoln, NE, for a very cool black and red Univega Viva Sport, which I road hard until it was stolen from my garage in Denver while I was mowing the lawn.

My cycling life took a step forward with my 1989 Trek 660 that I rode almost daily in the Washington Park Midlife Crisis Criterium (and I still have the bike).

So, my personal reference point is the late 80's / early 90's perod, which included the "pinnacle" of steel and the advent of ALU, carbon, and Ti. It is this this historical point that has shaped my own collecting and riding preferences.

Sixty Fiver

This was my bike back in 1983... right down to the Lake Blue colour.



https://www.ravingbikefiend.com/bikep...tition1983.jpg

MKahrl

The 1980's were some of my most interesting bicycling years but I'm not that impressed with technological changes in bicycles in the 1980's. It just didn't add anything to the cycling experience. For cycling in the United States I think the 1970's was a more significant decade. In 1970 riding a bike was something only little kids did and in just a few years cycling was HUGE. Organized centuries went from a dozen old cyclists to thousands in just one year. And for that large group of those new riders cycling remained a part of their lives for the next forty years.

Drillium Dude 

Basic black leather shoes! Not Lorica, and certainly not the clown-shoe look so prevalent in the later 80s and today.

FWIW, I believe all the 'Turbo' monikers were a direct result of Renault Sport's involvement - and emergence as a true World Championship contender - in Formula 1 in the early 80s.

Drillium Dude 

Regarding the mountain bike: +1. Even Colnago built a mountain bike frame - by that point, IMHO, it had passed from true usage to fad. I never knew any of my friends who owned one to ride them anywhere but the street (that humming you hear is their knobbies on asphalt) - or sidewalk. Like SUVs; what percentage of them really got off-road? I think the market hype mainly pushed them off onto people who never 'got gnarly' with them and simply used them for road jaunts.

I owned one for a year, a Marin Pine Mountain (remember Marin's heyday?). The owner's manual actually stated it was NOT to be used for jumping and that it's aluminum frame had a 'finite lifespan'. Huh? It was a hardtail, but the fork had 4" of travel - was that just to ensure I didn't buckle a rim in case I rode it off a curb?

I always thought that owner's manual was a riot - especially considering the marketing of the day!

jens5

I look for those Avocet Touring shoes on line all the time. Toured through Europe for 3 month's in 89 wearing them and loved them.

Elev12k

It does make sense. I did use my MTBs for what they were designed for, riding off road, plus more: Jumping, trialing and so. It led to wrecking frames and parts. Later they develloped specific designs for this purpose, but by than I had lost my interest. What I did not understand is that Pro-Flex widely advertised with an A4 large ad with nothing more than a rider making serious air time and "Pro Flex". A friend of mine broke his Pro Flex and the warranty deparment of the distributor refused to give him a replacement. Reason: Jumping.

jhefner

That's because of three major developments that started in the 70s, and peaked in the 80s:

1. First flight of Paul MacCready's Gossamer Condor on August 23, 1977. It won the first Kramer prize by being the first human powered aircraft to complete a mile-long figure eight course.

2. The flight of MacCready's Gossamer Albatross human powered aircraft across the English Channel on June 12, 1979; winning the second Kramer prize in the process. Both aircraft featured carbon fiber frames.

3. The appearance of the Vector HPV, first in a line of increasingly faster HPVs in the 1980s. The Vector was written up in the December 1983 issue of Scientific America; an article which inspired developers of several of the HPVs that followed.

Coupled with the appearance of the first streamlined cars (the Audi 5000s in 1983, and the Ford Taurus in 1986), it was no wonder that carbon fiber began being introduced, and bikes/components were introduced that catered to the general public's facination with aerodynamics that replaced the obsession with weight in the 1970s. I may be wrong here; but it seems like bikes did not really push below the 19-20 lb limit of the 1970s until the introduction of carbon fiber in the late 1980s.

I know my Viscount represented the "strap on everything" stage of the early 1970s; but when did the trend change to braze on everything?

-James

Chombi

Clown shoes??.... I do remember the then new to the sport, Nike road bike shoes starting to appear in the late 80's. I actually owned a pair of those white, perforated Nike road bike shoes that I think was made from mostly man made materials (vinyl/plastic??)...which resulted in them really killing my feet because I bought them with sizing as understood for bike shoes back then, very snug (close to tight) because the shoes (leather ones) were supposed to eventually stretch and break into your feet. Only think those Nikes did was close to break my toes!! How was I supposed to know that those non-leather shoes were not gonna stretch/break in?? I prefered the shoes i had in the earlier 80's (Diadoras and Duegis).
These days, I ride Sidi "clown shoes".

Chombi

Chombi

Early 80's, everything was starting to get brazed on to the bikes. Even my 1983 Peugeot PH10S had pretty much everything brazed on already except for DT shifter bosses which it did not have butit did have brazed on cable stops for the stem shifters. I remember marveling on how cool the brazed on tup tube cable guides look like when I bought the bike. I thought that stuff was only present in expensive italian bikes back then.

Chombi

Sixty Fiver

"Coupled with the appearance of the first streamlined cars (the Audi 5000s in 1983, and the Ford Taurus in 1986)"

This is incorrect.

North American companies started to pay more attention to aerodynamics and efficiency in the early 80's and it was 1984 that Ford released the new Thunderbird which was a huge departure from the box on wheels the 1983 version was. This car had a very low drag coefficient and I have to say, I really loved my old Turbo Coupe.

Saab has been wind tunnel testing their cars from day 1 and even their earliest models have very low drag coefficients and their 70's and 80's models can post numbers that will match and beat many modern cars.

European and Japanese makers have been designing cars based on aerodynamic benefits for much longer than North American producers although much of this research and development has gone into making sports cars and not daily drivers.

SoreFeet

Lets not forget the butt ugly neon paint schemes...And those god awful anondized rims...

jhefner

Well, if you really want to get technical; you will have to go back to the 1930s; and the Chrysler Airflow and several other European designs.

What made the 5000s and Taurus significant was that they were the first four door sedans (as opposed to sports cars like the Thunderbird) that underwent the transformation from the "crease and fold" styling to the "jellybean" look. They set the new standard for comtemporary styling; and "crease and fold" was obsolete from that point forward, to be replaced by the "jellybean look."

Prior to that, you are correct, there were small steps being taken in the form of adding a front airdam, rear spoiler, rounding pilliars and corners, reducing or elminating fender flare, and other minor details. But the 5000s and Taurus had these all features (except no tail spoiler on most models), plus flush mounted headlights, flush window glass, and other details that dropped the Cd down to 0.30; considered amazing in their day.

I still remember when and where I saw an Audi 5000s for the first time. It was sitting in the drive-through at a Taco Bell; and with it's smooth sides and window glass and rounded look; it looked like a spaceship had jumped in line with the other squared-off cars of the day. It made a profound impression on me; and to this day, it is one of my favorite cars. I disliked it when styling evolved to the "squint eye" Japanese appearance of most of today's cars.

The Ford Taurus' styling was a major risk for Ford; they remembered the Airflow as well; and a failure by the public to accept the new styling would have resulted in Ford's bankruptcy. Instead, it became known as the "car that saved Ford"; I have a dead 1995 Taurus wagon sitting in the driveway that I would love to restore to service. To me, it was one of the last of the classic station wagons; one that had real room in it; and no just a tall trunk space. It is also not the truck on wheels that is the minivan that replaced them.

The 1983 Ford Thunderbird's aerodynamics did indeed represent a major departure from the previous model, and yes, it was another example of the aero styling that took place in the 1980s. It was known at the time that it was becoming more and more difficult to make cars lighter or more mechanically efficient; so the last low hanging fruit that remained meeting the EPA milage guidelines was to make them more aerodynamic. I think the same school of reasoning was also in place in the bicycle industry as well; you could get more of a benefit from seriously reducing a bicycle's poor drag coefficient than you could saving a few more pounds off, or reducing friction somewhere. And, it was comtemporary with the times to do so.

-James

Drillium Dude 

Exactly my point: the media/ads clearly showed gains in altitude but if a buyer was to emulate the ad they would be voiding the warranty! Proof - to me - that it was all about image and less about capability.

frpax

Circa 1985:



Yep. 1984 Pinarello Record Arco LA 84 frameset
Suntour Superbe Pro crank, pedals, derailleurs, friction shifters
Dia Compe Royal Gran Comp brakeset
Campy Record hub, Mavic GP4 tublular rims, Clement sew up tires
Suntour New Winner freewheel
Campy aero seatpost
Selle Italia Turbo saddle (out of the frame)
Cinelli 1R stem, and Cinelli 64-40 bar
Benoto cello bar tape
Alfredo Binda toe straps
Specialized bottle cages
Leather hairnet
Diadora leather shoes
Castelli shorts
Descente jersey
ALE toe clips
Vuarnet sunglasses
(...and pretty close to a mullet there...)

not seen: knitted, mesh back gloves

The car I'm leaning against is my 1964 Rambler American (died in 1988)

Taken after my first crit. I was pretty pooped out.

Elev12k

Only thing I wanted to say is the distributor was inconsistent and had a double moral (if my pal had made a case of it he would have wun hands down)

Of course there was a lot of marketing involved in MTB'ing. I wouldn't expect otherwise from an US industry. Still, you could have a lot of fun riding them off road and it was better suited for a lot of things than already existing types of bikes. Even jumping, but you had to live with that that you write off your stuff at some point ...and if you had opted for going with a GT Zaskar or an early bonded Koga Miyata that point could wait a while.

Of course the roadscene as everything else is also not free from marketing. They show you a pro on the ads, while actually no-one isn't.

GV27

Funny how these things happen. My boss has been working me to death but he's out of town today so I've been sitting here enjoying cycling videos and reminiscing. The I see this thread. Please permit me to ramble about my memories.

The early 80's were my glory days both as a racer and a fan. I lived in Boulder, Colorado where we had the Coors Classic and the kids version, the "Red Zinger Mini Classic". Imagine a 2 week stage race for kids 10 to 15! So I thought I'd share some of my memories.

The Coors classic witnessed the "birth" of several future HUGE cycling names. In 1980 (I think) Phil Anderson lapped the field not once but twice in the North Boulder Park Criterium. Greg Lemond got his first pro win. Lucho Herrera and Fabio Parra warmed up for their breakthrough Tour De France as amateurs and the same went for the 7-Eleven team that would be the first from America to challenge at the Tour. Raul Alcala won the last race while going on with 7-Eleven to win the Maillot Blanc and wear the Polka Dots in the tour. Steve Bauer and Andy Hampsten cut their teeth before going on to become hugely successful in Europe.

In 1981, the Soviets sent their powerful amateur team (full of guys that would have been good pro riders but weren't allowed to turn pro) on gorgeous red Colnagos to match their fantastic red hammer-and-sickle kit. Bernard Hinault's Renault/Elf team sent their great young "find", 19-year-old Greg Lemond with nothing but a bunch of french kids off the street for support. It was like the beginning of Breaking Away except without the pump in the spokes (though the Russians came close!) While I've read a lot of stuff about how the Russians were great ambassadors, in my mind they were the great red evil both because of the propaganda coming out of Washington at the time and their behavior in the final stage. Race after race on the open road saw the breakaway basically consisting of the entire Soviet team and Greg Lemond. Somehow Lemond prevailed, however and at the last stage - the tight North Boulder Park Criterium the Russians were desperate to find a way to win (for all I know they were threatened with the gulag if they lost). I watched the race from the super tight s-turns where it was pretty much impossible for anyone to see what was going on other than the fans that were right there. I saw the Russians time and again try to take Lemond down and one time the Russian in the blue KoM jersey actually punched him and knocked him off. Talk about exciting!

1983 saw the Colombian national team attend and they were just men against boys. They were led by an old man (in his 40's) named Patricio Jimenez and two kids who would go on to become big stars in Europe - Lucho Herrera and Fabio Parra. While they were somewhat lost in the Criteriums, on n all of the climbing stages the entire Colombian team would break away. On the Golden to Vail Pass stage following the route of today's "Triple Bypass" ride Jimenez and Herrera put like half an hour on the entire field. Amazing. On I-70 the road was open with a cordon of police motorcycles around the peloton so you could actually drive next to the race. My Dad drove while I leaned out the window taking pictures before speeding ahead to stop at a key point and watch them come by.

My biggest memory of '83 was the 7-Eleven women's team. For 2 or three years they stayed at a house in the same housing project that I lived in. I spent all of my time hanging out over there admiring their Benottos and, being a 13-year-old boy, admiring the girls. One of them - a pretty dutch girl, I think Mika Havik? - stayed in our spare room and my Mom cooked pasta for her. And of course Rebecca Twigg was super fine and naturally I was totally smitten. Still am come to think of it! I still have a 7-Eleven hat they got for me, signed by them plus the men - Ron Kiefel, Davis Phinney, etc who would go on to take on the world in Europe.

1984 was an olympic year so the race was amateur only with national teams. The Americans were of course very strong and fielded three teams. The main competition was between Alexi Grewal, Steve Bauer and "The Cash Register" Davis Phinney. Grewal would end of getting popped for a positive test while running away with the overall. He would later appeal and win claiming the stimulant was in the tea that secondary race sponsor Celestial Seasonings gave him on the podium (which he later admitted was total BS, but everyone back then was taking stimulants of one sort or another).

'85 saw the race's first really big name come FROM Europe in the form of the great Bernard Hinault who came over to help pay back (or pay forward - I can't remember now) his treatment of Lemond at that year's tour. What a treat! That year and the next my family spent our summer vacation driving out to California and following the race back. My first glimpse of Hinault was charging up an incredibly steep grade on the prolog TT from Fisherman's Wharf to Coit Tower in San Francisco. Then a few days later he snookered Davis Phinney on the run in to Truckee. The two of them were off the front but Hinault wouldn't work because he was there to work for Lemond. Phinney was all ego and a serious sprinter so he was naive enough to think he could do all the work and still beat Hinault. Hinault came off his wheel to totally smoke him in the sprint and on the podium (being little I could weasel my way right up to every podium for the press interviews) he was all pissed off. He was ranting about what a bastard Hinault was until Hinault finally said (through a translator) "where were you when I was pulling the field up the last climb?". Davis sheepishly replied "off the back" and intelligently shut his mouth after that! In the last race around North Boulder Park I have an image of Hinault burned in my mind pulling the field, stringing it out single file and breaking it up on the front lap after lap after lap chasing down a dangerous break.

In '86 the World Championships were in Colorado Springs and all the big European pros showed up. Hinault, Lemond, Sarroni, Moser, Fignon, Moser, Argentin, etc. I just remember that being an amazing star-struck year and Hinault winning the thing. The World Championships, while certainly an "event" to attend being a bit of a let down. The course in Colorado Springs on the vast Air Force Academy campus sucked. It was hard to get around and not really that hard and not much of a crowd showed up. Fignon did some fantastic riding but in the end it came down to a bunch sprint (albeit uphill) won by Argentin. I still have a strong conviction (shared by virtually EVERYONE in town at the time) that it would have been a much better race drawing a far larger crowd had it been held on the tough Morgul Bismark course outside of Boulder.

Around this time (84 or 85 I think) they shot American Flyers at the Coors classic. I know for a fact that I am in several crowd scenes in that movie though I've never been able to actually spot myself. I think that same year or maybe a year before I had the privilege of riding with Eddy Merckx on the way home from the Morgul Bismark stage of the Coors Classic. He came up on me with a few other folks on a climb. I was just tooling along but when I saw who it was I was determined to keep up. I remember him seeming very fat and very old to me but while I was a stick of a boy one of the top climbers in town my age (having taken the KoM jersey for my age group at the Mini Classic around that time) it was all I could do to hang on his wheel up a climb while he chatted to one of his buddies. Dunno who that guy was but we left the rest of his group way behind and had to wait for them at the top. Eddy was super nice and asked me a bunch of questions on the ride back to town through one of the other guys acting as translator - basic stuff like how old are you, do you race (dumb question but probably just asking me about my racing because back then I carried a number on my bike year round!), etc. I was too star-struck and shy to give more than basic one and two word answers! Gave me a big wave and a "see you around" when we parted ways downtown. That's a memory that has gotten better and better with age.

Within a couple more years the organizer over-extended himself starting the race in Hawaii and when Coors balked at the mounting bills he told them where to stick it but was never able to find a new sponsor and it ended very suddenly. One year the race was fantastic and growing fast, becoming one of the world's most important stage races behind the Grand Tours and suddenly it was gone. I carried a grudge against the organizer for years after that giving him the finger from a distance (much to his bemusement, I'm sure!) when I'd see him around town. In my youth I took the loss of the race - the highlight of my year - very personally.

The memories go on and on and on but anyhow, ramble, ramble, ramble! Thanks for indulging me. Wrote this more for me than the rest of you!

GV27

Well, I think it is true that the Taurus was the first car that was really overtly "aerodynamic" whether it really was or not. Yeah, having been to college, etc. since and gaining a real knowledge of what really is aerodynamic I know those Saabs and many earlier cars were quite aerodynamic but the Taurus was pretty radical looking at the time. Then of course they used them as futuristic cop cars in Robo Cop!

jhefner

It is true that throughout history, there have been things that were streamlined and looked like they had been wind tunnel tested; but were nothing but styling. (Much of the Art Deco fad streamlining was of this nature.) Then, there were things that were really optimized for aerodynamics, with wind tunnel testing, etc.

Chysler actually built a wind tunnel, and used it to find an optimum shape for it's Airflow. One they learned was that the typical car of the 1930s was more aerodynamic when driven backwards than when it was driven forwards. To prove the point, they actually drove a car around backwards (Wikipedia says it was a car with the steering and drive axles reversed; I always heard it was a conventional car driven backwards cross country.)

Anyway, others at the time and later also used wind tunnel testing to fine tune their designs. What set the Audi 5000s (which was released first) and Ford Taurus apart was that the entire car was optimized for the lowest practical Cd. The following is the list that I can come up with off the top of my head of the changes they did to achive it:

1. Flush mounted headlights and window glass
2. Flush door frames and door handles
3. Much, if not all of the radiator cooling air came through slots under the bumper, rather than through the grill. Attention was even paid to airflow in the engine compartment.
4. Smoothing the underside of the car as much as possible; by rearranging and shaping components such as the oil and transmission pans, exhaust system, and rear axle.
5. Optimizing the stance (front height vs. rear height) of the car for lowest Cd.
6. Optimizing windshield angle and frontal area. Of course, no longer can one easily reach anything in the engine compartment; with everything jammed in as tight as possible.
7. Smooth sides with a minimum of fender flare and smooth hubcaps.
8. Smooth tail with an optimized trunk height and shape.

Anyway, the end result was truly stunning; and stood out compared to their comtemporaries. I think the work in the automotive industry also made wind tunnel testing more assessable to designers in other industries, including the cycling industry; prior to that; it was mostly used by the aerospace industry. Of course, nowdays, there are places where we can go to have ourselves and our positioning on our bikes wind tunnel tested if we so desire.

I was looking at cycling videos on youtube awhile back, and one of them showed a modern TT bike being tested in a wind tunnel. The video was taken from inside the control room; where you could see the displays on the desk. One of them showed what looked like the Cd for bike alone; it registered 0.32.

A drag coefficient of 0.32 was good for a car back in the 1980s; and it is still pretty good today. I was amazed to see that they got a bare bicycle, with all that machinery hanging on it, down to 0.32 as well.

Anyway, when carbon fiber began to catch on big time in the 1990s; then I think the drive to push weight down began once again, as they attempted to make more and more parts out of it instead of AL or Ti. From an aerodynamic point of view, I think they are a point where they were with weight back in the 1980s; you would have to go with a prone position or some other radical ideas to get radical improvements nowdays.

GV27, I really enjoyed your posting on the race scene in CO during the 1980s. I was in college at the time, and studying to be a mechanical engineer so I could work in the aerospace industry (or so I hoped.) I wasn't paying much attention to the bicycle racing scene; so thanks for your look back at what I missed.

-James

Elev12k

The Audi 5000 was called '100' overhere and became car of the year 1983, for substantial part just because of its great aerodynamics.

....we fortunately can continue to buy! Livestream pressconference overhere within a couple of minutes >>>

https://www.rtl.nl/components/financi...tream/insb.xml

frpax

Bikes, gentlemen... not cars!

And GV27!!! Wonderful reminiscing! You jogged several memories of that time for me!

Yes. the '80s were truly special...

Sixty Fiver

A little more hijacking...

In the mid seventies the Citroen CX had a pretty low drag coefficient of .355 but in 1949 Saab released the model 92 which had a drag coefficient of .30