Ahead of his time: Stephen Hodge shows off some new/old tech, Roubaix 95. Photo: Sirotti
Ok all you roadies, listen up. You’re not gonna like what I’m about to tell you, but it’s the truth. And sometimes, the truth hurts. You ready?
Road cycling owes a lot to mountain biking.
“You what?!” I hear you screaming at the monitor in disgust. “Road cycling has been around for more than a hundred years, and the mountain bike for about thirty!” Well, nice theory, but bikes were ridden on dirt long before their tyres ever saw a sealed surface. But this isn’t about the chicken or the egg, it’s about the way technology crosses over from one discipline to another, and how similar, yet different aspects of the same sport inter-breed, cross pollinate and spawn innovations that better the machines we ride and the kit we wear. And I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that sleek road machine you’re riding now probably wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for our dirtbag cousins.
It all took off in the early 90s; the mountain bike was undergoing its own metamorphosis, rapidly dropping the ‘klunker’ heritage and becoming lighter, stiffer and racier. The geometry was changing from slack and raked-out head angles to more sharply handling, longer and lower front ends. A little like road bikes, granted. The first big change up front though was the oversized headset and steerer tube combo, dubbed the Avenger by Tioga, the first company to bring it to market. The steerer increased from 1 inch diameter to 1 1/8″, giving the front of the bike more precise steering and a more solid feel over rough terrain. Soon, Dia Compe came up with the AHeadset, doing away with the threaded steerer and headset in favour of a threadless system held together by a stem clamped over the smooth steerer tube. There’s not a road (or mountain) bike to be seen with a threaded front end these days.
Having a bigger steerer attached to rigid fork blades made some difference to the mountain bike, but even more was needed up front to tame the terrain and reduce the pounding that riders’ arms would take on proper off-road trails. While some weird and wonderful contraptions briefly held court (like the Girvin Flexstem, as terrifying as it was), the obvious solution was to borrow technology from the motocross crowd, and the first suspension fork for bicycles was born. The Rock Shox RS1 was as rare as hen’s teeth, but when one was spotted in the wild the geek-out factor went through the roof, and any rider lucky enough to have one bolted to the front of their bike would be accosted for twenty minutes and bombarded with questions about “how it works”. In the space of a year, there were three or four different iterations of suspension forks on the market, most of them completely unaffordable to the Regular Joes that rode in the dirt.
Looking back at the suspension tech of those days now, the word ‘archaic’ springs (pardon the pun) to mind. The modern mountain bike is an engineering marvel, and I’m as amped on new technology now as I was in the early 90s. The sport has continued to push the boundaries and is constantly evolving. And road cycling has benefitted greatly. We’ve all seen the Rock Shox Ruby forks that appeared on the bikes of Paris-Roubaix for a few glorious years, even taking a couple of wins in the Queen of The Classics. The MTB forks of the day were mostly heavy, elastomer sprung and undamped, giving the effect of a pogo stick on the front of the bike. To try and put one on the front of a road bike was preposterous at best, a blasphemous disaster at worst. Then there were the failed attempts at rear suspension which disappeared as quickly as they came. But riders and teams were willing to try anything to tame the brutal cobbles of the Hell of the North, and if you didn’t have a Ruby fork then you were behind the 8-ball straight away. The fact that the bike would bounce around under pedalling load on the smooth roads was outweighed by the comfort and control on the cobbles.
But roadies being roadies, the extra weight and inefficiency soon rendered the Ruby detrimental to the performance of the bikes… but that comfort was welcome. How to get some shock absorption and keep the weight low? Carbon fibre forks were conceived, giving a smooth ride up front on the stiff yet light aluminium frames that were taking over the peloton at the time (another innovation gleaned from the mountain bike). If it worked up front, then why not at the rear too? Carbon seatstays were bonded onto the back ends of just about every bike that came out in the mid 90s. If it worked for the fork and stays, then why not the whole frame? The carbon bikes so ubiquitous today were spawned from the need for a smoother ride, without the weight and complexity of suspension. Thanks, mountain biking.
Now, check out Hodgey’s helmet in the lead photo. Look kinda familiar? Well, helmets pretty much came from mountain biking, and the early examples looked just like that; round, few vents, not pointy at the back. And what do we have now? Round, sparsely vented, not-too-pointy ‘aero’ road helmets, that we are all crying about being ugly and unnecessary. But how cool does Hodgey look? Badass! It’s only a matter of time before we’re all wearing them, and possibly with visors. (In the 1999 P-R, several riders wore helmets with visors, including 3rd placegetter Tom Steels and Frank Vandenbroucke.) Okay, maybe I’ve gone too far there, but I saw a guy riding in an Air Attack the other day, and by Merckx did I think he Looked Pro! These helmets will be the norm sooner rather than later; after all, don’t we take our cues from the Pros?
There have been numerous advances that have come from mountain biking and are now seen as standard on road bikes; removable face plates on stems, wider profile rims, lightweight saddles, tapered head tubes, integrated headsets, external cup/press-fit bottom brackets, oversize bar diameters (and let’s not forget road disc brakes. You can’t fight it!). Black socks. Tall socks. If it wasn’t for the mountain bike and the innovators working in that industry, we might still be riding lugged steel frames with downtube shifters. Which would be ok with me, as long as I can still have my off-road wonderbike.
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View Comments
@Gianni
The first time I saw black socks was on Travis Brown, in 94 I think... he was considered a bit of a rebel because of that, and his earrings, goatee and sideburns. He wouldn't raise an eyebrow these days. I immediately tried to grow sideburns with varying success, but the black socks have been with me ever since.
Travis was a bit of an innovator with his bikes too, including the 69er (29 front/26 rear wheel mtb) and a belt drive singlespeed 'crosser...
@Rigid
Research? Ha, just the memory banks retaining crap that isn't really useful except for churning out an article at 1am!
Some of the Ruby-equipped bikes ran lockouts, like this GripShift activated example on LeMond's Ti bike... not pretty, and probably not that functional either!
He also tried some rear damping...
"The carbon bikes so ubiquitous today were spawned from the need for a smoother ride, without the weight and complexity of suspension"
This, and really the whole paragraph claiming that mountainbikes are the cause for carbon frames is reaching for straws. Carbon frames aren't there for comfort. Carbon frames are there because they are lighter and more aerodynamic than steel, titanium or aluminium frames. The only race that had riders begging for comfort was Paris-Roubaix, and the first carbon parts were used in every race, not just Paris-Roubaix.
I am also still baffled by the sudden increase in tire width. Things that were true 20 years ago don't suddenly reverse. A narrow tire has less roll resistance because the contact patch is smaller which imposes less deformation on the tire. That's why ultra-efficient cars such as the volkswagen XL1 and BMW i3 have very narrow section tires.
@RVester
Well, nice theory, but not quite right. Steel has as good, if not better, damping qualities as carbon, but can't be made as light as easily and as cheaply as carbon frames can. Titanium, even more so on both counts. Alu, well it can be made as light as fuck, and cheaply, but the ride will always be the harshest, and made super-light it's prone to crack easily. Carbon is the cheapest, lightest, and easiest material to make for frames and has good damping characteristics. Make a mold, churn em out.
So, by that theory, Formula 1 cars should be on motorcycle tyres by now? And Moto GP bikes should be running 23s...
Schwalbe, who know a bit about tyres, disagree with you...
"Why do wide tires roll better than narrow ones?
The answer to this question lies in tire deflection. Each tire is flattened a little under load. This creates a flat contact area.
At the same tire pressure, a wide and a narrow tire have the same contact area. A wide tire is flattened over its width whereas a narrow tire has a slimmer but longer contact area.
The flattened area can be considered as a counterweight to tire rotation. Because of the longer flattened area of the narrow tire, the wheel loses more of its "roundness" and produces more deformation during rotation. However, in the wide tire, the radial length of the flattened area is shorter, making the tire "rounder" and so it rolls better."
http://www.schwalbetires.com/tech_info/rolling_resistance
Mountain bikers; innovators like this fuckwit?
Brett, great article, lots to chew on... Just to get it out of the way - black socks are a no brainer for off road but look shite for road - end.
@RVester
Things that weren't very true 20 years ago aren't true these days either. Lots of the old "wisdom" was never researched nor proven scientifically. There are plenty of tests these days that show how 21mm, 23mm and 25mm versions of the same tyre show progressively less rolling resistance, and how pumping up to 150psi isn't any faster, on the road, than a reasonable 110psi.
A smaller contact patch means the smaller tyre must deform more to counter the load (which usually remains the same). The relationship is nearly linear, but a larger contact patch has to deform less overall and therefore usually achieves better rolling resistance. That is, unless you run higher pressures - which most do - which opens up a different problem: Your bike then soaks up whatever force the road transmitted that wasn't absorbed by tyre deformation, which means a larger percentage of your precious power is spent going up and down in the vertical direction instead of horizontally going forward.
Long story short, unless you're racing on silky-smooth velodrome boards, lower pressures and larger contact patches will usually win, up to a point of diminishing returns (pinch-flats, etc).
There's also very little in common between a 1500kg damped vehicle and an 80kg two-wheeled rigid vehicle.
Great write up Brett! Late last year there was the Ausbike exhibition in Melbourne. I spent most of my time there at the Farren Collection stand absolutely blown away by the gear they were making in the late 1800's, early 1900's. There was heaps of suspension innovations on solid tyres, and along came the pneumatic tyre. Also check out the all drive train innovations.
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@Optimiste
Even if we chuck aesthetics from the equation for a moment, there's one problem that disc brakes can't solve: I don't want a squadron of searing-hot metal blades rolling toward me if the bunch goes tits-up on a descent. Nope nope nope.
@frank
@Puffy
I'll second the antipathy toward road tubeless. I'd much rather glue up a pair of tubs than muck around with tubeless on a road bike.