Iride01 

Maybe my eyes were deceiving me, but weren't most of those bikes running 27" tires? I miss those. Only a 8 mm more diameter in the rim, but I always felt they were better riding. Maybe it's just the rims hid the fact they were typically a wider tire.

canklecat

Yup, 1964, that was a standard size.

My 1976 Motobecane had 27" wheels, 1-1/4" tires, and that classic French fork -- long and curvy. Not great for racing but terrific for long rides on mixed pavement.

I enjoy my '89 Iroman but it's a bit twitchy in comparison, especially with the shorter 90mm stem I got from another BF member to replace the original (120 or 125, I think). On Thursday's ride on a fast downhill doing around 35 mph just coasting, I came across a set of three rubber rumble strips forgotten by a road crew. The black rumble strips blended with the pavement, which was a hodge podge of gray and black asphalt and chipseal, patched many times, so I didn't see the strips until it was too late to avoid them. I decided it was less dangerous (not to say "safer") to go straight over them rather than swerve toward the shoulder and risk sliding out on sandy gravel and debris. I was boxed in to my left by a passing car. Fortunately I was in the drops and had just enough time to relax my elbows to absorb the three consecutive jolts like a spring, so the front wheel barely bobbled. Not an experience I'd care to repeat.

But a bike with a longer wheelbase, more relaxed geometry and more favorable trail, like those 1960s bikes, would have handled that much more gracefully.

seypat

Fantastic filmmaking also.

HTupolev

Almost certainly not. 27" wheels were always clincher, and were typically used on "recreational" road bikes in the UK and the US. Most serious racing bikes have been running tubulars (in the basically-700c size) since forever ago.

DaveLeeNC

When I lived in California and worked for IBM (south San Jose), I would (when time was available) do lunchtime rides solo or with whoever was around. Seana Hogan (multiple RAAM winner) also worked there and would sometimes ride with us. I noticed that she turned really big gears at low cadence (I would estimate in the 60s' somewhere). This was in the mid 1990's timeframe.

dave

RiceAWay

That is a spectacular place for a ride. The Tierra Bella Century takes that road in and I also come back along the peaks there when I do over-nighters down to Mission San Juan Batista. That entire plant looks completely run down. Is it even active anymore? Doing any business in California now is about three times as expensive as anywhere else short of NYC. With this stupid shut down half of the restaurants which composes about 60% of the real tax paying businesses in California won't be able to re-open. What in the hell is California going to tax to make up for that? Already everything with money is leaving California.

DaveLeeNC

We were working out of what was called the 'Santa Teresa Lab' which was a big software lab off Bailey Rd (about halfway between San Jose and Morgan Hill). Still great riding country. The San Jose plant site - I have no idea what is happening there. There is also a research facility in that area (IBM Almaden Lab) off Harry Rd (top of Bernal Rd) that is still operational AFAIK.

But there is some great riding in all of that area. The Metcalf Rd climb was my favorite (OK - maybe not halfway up).

dave

79pmooney

Another comment on his low RPM - this isn't a mass start race. The primary reason we rode the first 4 hours of a long race in high RPMs was so we still had snap when we put it in the big gears coming to the finish, or to go with the break that was going up the road. Higher RPM isn't efficient, uses more oxygen, more calories. But it saves muscle fiber that will be race deciding later. This rider doing this long Zwift ride doesn't have to save his reserves for that.