(Quick warning to those just looking for typical average joe bike person blog writing, this post is basically full bike nerdness do not be surprised if you don't understand.)So back when I first was starting to care about bicycles fully, the year was roughly 1989 and 21 speeds or 3 x 7 gearing (depending on your bike schooling) was all the rage of the growing mountain biking scene, much like Ned Overend's mustache. Components were moving from freewheels to cassettes and freehubs and spacing on rear hubs went from centered to dished. Over the next five years, some of the greatest components from Suntour and Shimano came from that era including both companies thumbshifters, nearly every component of Suntour's XC Pro gruppo and Shimano's Deore XT gruppo, Shimano wide style cantilever brakes, WTB Greaseguard products (hubs and headsets), Ritchey headsets, Ritchey brake levers and headsets, Sugino compact cranks, and on were created. What has happened since has probably been the greatest diversification in bicycle components and frames in 20 years than whatever had been engineered in the however many years before it.
Natural progression of parts well progressed. Threaded headsets with largely adjustable quilled stems made way into lighter Aheadsets with largely unadjustable stems to dedicated adjustable theadless headset stems. 3 x 7 (21 spd) gearing went to 3 x 8 because we needed more gears to 3 x 9 because we needed more gears to, strangely enough, 2 x 10 (20 spd) and single speeds because we have too many gears. Mountain bike frames went from rigid steel to front suspended aluminum to fully suspended aluminum and carbon fiber to rigid steel with larger diameter wheels. Brakes went from fairly lightweight and effective "cable straddle" style cantilever brakes to crappy working "y-straddle" style cantilever brakes to effective and lightweight v-brakes to now heavy and moderately effective disc brakes (in cyclocross they went back to lightweight and effective "cable straddle" style cantilever brakes). SRAM which became successful by offering a shifting option (Gripshift) other than Shimano's Rapidfire, essentially equips bikes today with their version of Rapidfire.
It makes you wonder if all the hype of parts and frames and styles were truly advances in technology or if it was just really good marketing. I don't know the answer, I definately appreciate v-brakes but miss thumbshifters and can't help but wonder what other junk that will come next.
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The other interesting movement is the fact that some companies move from 700c to smaller 650b wheels for road bikes and then move mountain bikes from 26" up to 700c (29er) wheels.
ReplyDeleteMatt,
ReplyDeleteappreciate the posting. It would be great if you can kindly cite or give reference to the owner of that picture on this post--that would be me.
What company went to 650b for its road bikes and 700c for its mountain bikes?
Truly sorry, in this world of vast internet I am unsure how to reference things.
ReplyDeleteRivendell and Bruce Gordon and more that I am forgetting seem to be moving towards 650b as a standard and it would seem that nearly every major bike company is moving towards 700c or 29er wheels for mountain bikes. Who'd a thunk.