things that sucked/were cool back in the day

[hampco]

the poster thread and near perfect parts thread got me thinking (uh oh) about how much stuff we used that totally sucked when we were young (mid-70s for me) - but we didn't know any better 'cause we were all in the same boat.

here's a start:

helmets: it rocked back in the day because they didn't exist so no one wore one; it sucked racing in hairnets because you knew if you crashed and hit your head it wouldn't help a bit. fortunately it never happened.

shorts: wool with real chamois? sucked big time. so did the alternatives.

jerseys: see shorts

shoes: they were cool because you had to have a cobbler's last to mount cleats - or it helped, but c'mon - leather shoes with leather soles? or wood soles?

frames: cool because they were steel, sucked because heavy and poorly made. anything that wasn't steel (graftek, teledyne titan, alan) sucked even worse

parts: campy was the best and it sucked still. shimano and simplex were surprisingly good - that's how bad it was

tires: sewups for racing didn't suck, flatting them, trying to fix and failing, sucked. clinchers, both elan and schwinn le tour, sucked

saddles: oh boy. brooks, unicanitor, or ideale 90 or 2001 were the choices. brooks was better back then than now

pedals and clips: cool in a pre-industrial sort of way

gearing: please... 42/52 5-or-6 speed with 13-19 on the rear

riding: awesome, couldn't be beat. did not suck

food: bananas or pb sammiches

races: big fun

your list?

[Saab2000]

Indexed steering ranks very high on the list of things that sucked.

Pretty much everything else was awesome because ignorance was bliss.

[doofus]

sucked:

nobody in my part of the US knew what orthotics for cycling shoes were and I had knee and foot problems for ten years.

cool:

everything else. when you didn't know that there was anything better, you got out, rode the hell out of it, and had a blast.

hell, right now I ride a 15-year old frame with a bunch of campy alloy parts that I sometimes bother to (mis)adjust. I ride the snot out of it. I have a blast.

[habitué]

The first full-suspension MTBs.

[WFSTEKL]

All of the handlebars were narrow back in the day. That sucked.

All of the waterbottles had pin holes for openings. When you were on the rivit and needed a drink, you went hypoxic trying to get a drop of water out of the damn thing. That sucked.

[ADD]

The original grip shift where really stunningly bad.

[Mordalo]

First generation Shimano Rapid Fire (for the MTB riders).

Anything with an elastomer.

Headbands.

[Cary Ford]

Avocet sucked.

Campy pedals, clips, Binda straps, and the Sidis with the big holes in them rocked.

Skid-Lids sucked.

Modolo breaks were cool... and they sucked.

[bigbill]

Sucked:
-Campy SGR pedals
-"Tomac" style handlebar setups that were just wide enough for brakes, shifters, and grips.
-The 150mm stem that went with the above setup.
-When buying a shimaNo equipped MTB meant all or nothing with the grouppo.
-Farmer John tires on an off-camber trail.

Cool:
Barum tubulars
Mavic components
Suntour components
Cinelli Unicator
Chrome seatstays
Chrome forks
Miyata first generation carbon fiber frames. A sub 23 pound road bike was possible.
Raleigh 753

[justinf]

Biopace sucked.

When Campy first released Chorus, that rocked. So did Specialized Stumpjumpers.

[Brian Smith]

I wear Vans footwear probably 5 out of 7 days per week, though not so much back in the day. When Vans brake "shoes" came out, I already knew enough about brake pads (a set per month at least, sanding them flat and clean sometimes more than once per day) that they were going to suck, but I never bought any of them. I still had to worked on bikes equipped with them, and they sucked. You can still buy them, and they still suck. Maybe against some carbon rims for a 'cross race they'd be no less tolerable than the alternatives.

Caged ball bearing bottom brackets for mountain bike use in the late 80s to 90s sucked too, and that ubiquitous crap kept mechanics in business.

[ron l edmiston]

my 1955 schwinn phantom:

i was 12 years old and my bud jere, always wanted to ride my bars - was only about 75 pounds, soaking wet.
when i hit the bumps, he always cought his crotch in the shock on top!!!!

those were the days!!!!

[palincss]

Sucked in the 1970s:

Avocet crankset: I broke 3 crank arms
Spokes
Campagnolo Gran Turismo derailleur - a pathetic attempt at a touring derailleur
Brake "safety levers"

[GSmith]

My 1974 Schwinn Varsity... sucked and cool at the same time. Kelly green metallic, weighed a ton, but it was the closest thing to freedom for someone on the short side of driving age. The translucent plastic bar tape was the epitome of sucking.

Thinking about it reminded me of the neighborhood bully, Chucky Watts. Chucky used to ride a no doubt stolen 10 speed complete with spray can paint job and turned up drop bars. He could ride a wheelie for miles, and rode 9 months out of the year without a shirt and had chest hair at like 12 years old. One day Chucky was riding a wheelie and his front wheel came out, so what does he do? Instead of going over backwards he rides over to the tree lawn between the sidewalk and the street and plants his fork in the grass and does a total face plant. That was the day that Chucky Watts lost all power over our little hood.

He's somewhere out there... no doubt wearing a wife beater and scratching himself.

[steve garro]

DAMN! good list! this list points out more about the cyclists here then anything i've read! so, some more: anything cnc-ed and purple that broke quick. american made cnc derailleurs,.......for a while, at every race i would win i would get an odessey pro-vapor system - the 150mm stem with the snail cam pulley, backwards bars all of 19" wide and a steering damper. musta had 3 at once. joe's clips that had 2 sets of straps. replacing broken axles on freewheels hubs. sharp plastic benotto bar tape. soft single wall road rims. mallard axle nuts {!!} mallard heliomatic hubs, even the bottle opener on the hub tool bent if you used it. the shimano index system with the indexing on the derailleur that used two pieces of baling wire. {i think i have purged the name from my mind} keyed headset spacers. american classic QR's. mafac cantis. PRESS-IN BEARING BB'S!!! WHY DO PEOPLE WANT THESE BACK!!! DON'T YOU REMEMBER THE MISERY???? specialized umma-gumma tires.......IRD brakes - all of them. the concor saddles with the big "scoop" to push on on the back.....huret derailleurs with the 3 pulleys...shimano sante....digging through entire drawers of nutted spindles.........gawd, i could go on & on. steve.

[swoop]

lemond drop in bars.
spinaci
campy index shifting (first gen)
thinking i was rad for getting my bike down to 20lbs.
those all foam specialized sub whatever helmets that would get all dented up..

[hampco]

steve, you're a maniac!

that'll be "positron" for 50, bob

umma-gumma tires for sure - andy rode them one year and while they gripped like crazy in dry they turned into snot on a gear shifter when wet.

pre-king headsets sucked

[bigbill]

..shimano sante....gawd, i could go on & on. steve.

When I lived in Charleston, SC, I rode with a guy who had Sante components. He routinely handed me my ass on group rides and collected medals every June. He worked in a bike shop and could've had nicer stuff. I think he used it to mess with people. He rode 1995 states with a missing brake hood.

[dang]

My first race wheels . . . took off these tank-like things and replaced them with a used set of fiamme ergal rims laced to record hubs and eventually got a set of clement silks on them. I broke the front wheel in a mishap, but before that . . . awesome, I've never felt so thrilled with a piece of gear. Those tires killed, btw.

Loved it (and wonder how good it was) -- a carton of Raleighs bound for France somehow wound up here and there and I bought one -- 531 (pro?) frameset that seemed pretty light for the day, with an odd assortment of French parts. That was my first race bike.

Duegi shoes with wood soles -- I liked mine and wonder if I could even wear them now.

Really loved it and it was probably not very good at all: my first "ten speed" (actually had ten speeds) was a Gitane junior racer that I got when I was thirteen -- simplex derailleurs, weinmann centerpulls if I remember right, and a hard plastic saddle.

Definitely sucked but I thought they were good: clips with binda extra straps cinched down so that I'd get a nice groove on the top of each foot, which was immobile between the clip and the pedal, to which it was affixed with a hard plastic cleat with a slot in it.

[SteveP]

i always regretted the team moving from mavic ssc to shimano index
it was cool with any wheel going on any bike.

plus that stuff worked forever and never never needed anything.
bearing are the bst ever.