[From Nathan Dahlberg, former professional road racer with 7-11, Motorola, and Spago, among others, and veteran of two Tours de France. Nathan still races bicycles, and is also a keen adventure cyclist. Posted with permission and ©Nathan Dahlberg.]

Part II of II

And for what happened in 33 years: during the 80’s bikes got heavier – my 1991 Merck with Duraace 8 speed was 24 pounds (compared to just 20/21 pounds as an average race bike in 1980), aero came in, and, rather surprisingly, most of the fastest climbs in history were made in the mid 90’s on some of the heaviest bikes in history, showing that the weight in the veins is far more important to speed than the weight in the tubes. Recently friction has become an issue again – yes it’s something that was big way back when decent bearings etc were made – including taking one ball bearing out and replacing grease with a drop of sewing machine oil! When one thinks about it, friction and resistance exist constantly, whereas aerodynamics play a major roll much less of the time and weight only occasionally!

And with the current generation of bikes, yeah it all looks pretty, carbon light weights and deep dish wheels etc. but the biggest change has been gears, the huge range of sprockets. If you look at 70’s and even 80’s guys going up Mountain pass’s were just flogging themselves trying to turn massive gears than in sprint finish’s it was more like drag racing as guys ran out gears and was a long spin to the finish. The small gears are changing the whole nature of racing, every year the organizers of Vuelta and Giro find steeper and steeper mts and the riders winning them get smaller and skinny – nowadays Merck would’ve been a domestique for Fuente!

Sprinters are outta of saddle the whole sprint now on enormous gears. There’s a huge increase in specialization because the gears allow it – and the race courses have adapted themselves to the material in other ways- none so much as time trialing. When I arrived in France in 1984, a TT was 60 – 80 kms long and a maze of corners and small hills. Now its a flat highway course. Time trialing has adapted itself to the TT bike in fact. Likewise in Belgium , where there’s almost no cobbled races any more, no one wants to go to cobbled races because they might damage there carbon wheels sets.

[From Nathan Dahlberg, former professional road racer with 7-11, Motorola, and Spago, among others, and veteran of two Tours de France. Nathan still races bicycles and is a keen adventure cyclist. Posted with permission and ©Nathan Dahlberg.]

Part I of II

My first race bike (1981) was a second hand Ti Raleigh with a mixture of original Shimano Dura Ace and Zeus equipment probably about 5 years old at the time weighing roughly 23 pounds. Since then I’ve ridden a variety and they have subjectively at least given all sorts of rides good and bad. By and large I haven’t liked the new generation of bikes. That has nothing to do with looks or what they are made of but due to the proliferation of straight forks. For me straight forks whether on a steel, aluminum or carbon bike make it extremely twitchy and gives you the feeling you’re on the rivet the whole time, relaxing and taking corners with confidence is not part of the game. 

Since I started riding there’s been a whole range of improvements to the basic bicycle and also clothing–most of these enhance a riding experience quality and comfort wise—an experience that already exists. Clip-less pedals are like that for me, there’s no way I would want to go back to toe-straps, on the other hand there is no riding experience (or speed) with clip-less pedals I can think of I couldn’t achieve with toe- straps. (They have improved shoe design as well which is great). Ahead sets are a great boon (although nothing beats the look of an old Cinelli stem) as is STI. STI is a semi-dimensional improvement. For training it barely matters — in fact I prefer the old down tube ones, way less hassle and maintenance free, but for racing STI are an undoubted advantage in almost every respect (although bar end which I still run on my ‘cross bike are remarkably good as well; they were a victim of Fashion).