> I must abstain from the uniform heckle that these much maligned chain rings
> receive.. In fact, let it be noted that condemnation of these chain rings is
> universally conformed to by all with-it cyclists..
When I took up cycling (again) as a adult (after years as a runner), the first bike I bought, a Trek 1400, had BioPace chain rings. At the time I had no idea I had "special" rings, and never even noticed they weren't round.
After riding the bike for almost a year, I relocated to San Diego and almost by accident started riding with the San Diego Cyclo-Vets, a pretty hard-core crowd. It wasn't long before I started taking grief for my chain rings. I succumbed to the pressure, reinforced by the need to change my 42 inner ring to a 39 because of the hills, and bought a round inner ring. It wasn't until I had the 42 tooth ring in my hand that I noticed how ridiculously misshapen it was.
I immediately noticed a difference in my pedalling stroke, but found I adapted to the round ring fairly quickly. From a distance of more than ten years, I can't now recall that I found shifting between a round inner ring and a BioPace outer to be at all disconcerting.
It wasn't much later that I bought a set of round 52/42 rings and haven't ridden with the BioPace rings since. Now that I'm a "seasoned" cyclist I sometimes think of putting the old rings on one of my bikes just to see how I feel about them now.
jeverett@wwa.com (John V. Everett)