Damien wrote:
I am no engineer, but apart form the cool drillium components (now, why didn't that trend continue??), I for one would steer clear of any vintage part whose specs along any dimension had been tinkered with by some amateur engineer. I have been in races where a guy snaps a crank arm - another snaps a rear axle.. Just glad most of the time, up here in the NE, in the 80's - 90's most of the field was more concerned with leg power than attempting to out-think a professional metallurgical engineer. But that's just me.
+++
This reminds me of the 1975 Long Beach Grand Prix, held on the F-1 track the Friday before the car race. I was riding Junior, as there was no Intermediate race that day, Lon Bender ex-North Hollywood Wheelmen, and at the time riding for QRBC (Quick Release Bicycle Club) was also racing, we had raced often against each other the year before.
We talked briefly, I advised that to be upfront early was the ticket as I did not want to be in the pack going through the turns on the first lap. Gun goes off, I start hard, and expect to see Lon around. No Lon. Got the first lap prime on basically a breakaway, fell back into the pack as the race was too long to solo. (I should have stayed out, the next lap they announced that due to pending darkness the race would only be 5 laps, not 10 as announced, which was originally to be 20, so it goes) I did get one more prime. so not a total loss.
The year before, Lon had taken a 1/4" drill to his Sugino Crank arms, you get the picture. It took a year, but he broke a crank arm at the starting gun, DNF.
A two man break would have been fun.
John Jorgensen
Torrance CA USA