And well - to better understand the Pollan way of thinking about food.
Watch www.storyofstuff.com/.
Don't forget to give ol' G-Ride a call. He sounds lonely in his last comment.
And the thinking about gearing gets me thinking about Tim Krabbes book.
All the stuff talks about (old days) gearing that would make people buckle now days.
Granted. When I was 22 there wasn't ANY hill i couldn't get up in my 39-18. Seriously. But i was 165 back then. add 30 pounds and well, i can GO much faster on the flats and generate way more power, but i can't climb like that kid can anymore.
Maybe there is something to the whole smoking thing. Those guys rode big gears - smoked (well they had some nice dope too but anyway)...
Some thing is nagging at me. Like that itch I can't scratch. An idea i can't shake out of my head. Some thing rattling around that won't fall out. Like dropping you pick into the mandolin. Sumbitch is in there. You can shake and shake but sometimes it just doesn't want to bounce out.
maybe it'll pop out on the way home. overcast 45°F and a steady wind out of the NW at 25 mph. Gonna be a fun ride home.
Heddwch
G
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6 comments:
Your post me think of two things:
1) "The older I get, the stronger I was."
2) Your muscles change as you get older. I'd imagine most 50 year olds cannot match their vertical leap from when they were 20, even if they weigh the same now. Endurance and stamina seem to hold up better than explosive power. Or that could just be me. I never had much explosive power to begin with. Maybe the ex-phys people can pipe in on this one and extol some of their vast institutionally-validated knowledge upon us.
Even the younger pros use easier gears now than the old days. I think it's just natural evolution of the sport. We have more gears on the bike and people are smart enough to see that it works better than grinding away in the 18 cog. Bikes have higher highs AND lower lows and they both work under the right situations.
And the gears Krabbe was talking about were with 42/52 chainrings I believe. I don't know what year road doubles went from 42/52 to 39/53.
52s were still common on new bikes in the US in the very late 80s, but 53's were appearing then, right about when 7 speed freewheels became the norm too. 39s were right around that same time. Ditto for the 12 cog, which existed in some 6 speeds but was pretty rare. I think the first DA 8speed with downtube shifters came out in 91.
I spoke too soon. I have a video of the 1990 Worlds, taped off Japanese TV, and the Motorola guys already have STI. Dag Otto drops his chain while in what looked like a winning move, but really fumbles with the lever trying to get it back on.
Make that 7-11...
I watched some of the video last night. Most of the guys have downtube shifters. Epic footage, Kelly, Lemond, Bugno sans helmets. Lauritzen already had two huge holes in his shorts, bloody flesh and chamois hanging out, when he makes a mad bridge with Wegmueller to the lead break. Then they he ride right through it and they're gapping everyone on the penultimate climb, and he drops his chain. Probably one of his first rides with STI and the damn 39... Fumbles with the lever but can't figure out how to get the chain back on and the group goes by and he knows it's over...
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