First published November 11, 2019
Henri Desgrange once said, “I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five.” Did he have a point? Have we all gone soft in this age of compacts, wide-range cassettes, and electronic shifting? Let’s take a magical step back in time and explore how we got to where we are today.
Originally, bikes were fixed-wheel and single speed; the rate your legs turned determined your speed. This was, of course, fine if you lived in a pan-flat area without wind. Most people, however, didn’t live in such a utopia, and they realised that things sucked.
Between 1877 and 1906, frustrated cyclists and madcap inventors filed over 750 London patents for systems that would allow variable speeds. Towards the end of this period, we started to see the first bikes that allowed changeable speeds, for example, Paul le Vivie, a French writer, publisher, and promoter, invented a two-speed shift in 1905.
By the time we reached the 1930s, there were numerous multi-speed shift mechanisms available to the avid cyclist. These systems required a pull or push of a lever that physically derailed the chain to allow a change in gearing - crude but they worked.
Alas, not everyone was a fan of how things were going: cycling was becoming soft. Again, Henri Desgrange commented, “Isn’t it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailleur?” He sure thought so: he banned the use of the derailleur in the Tour de France until 1937 - an entire generation after the derailleur had been invented.
A little later on, in 1949, Campagnolo revealed a prototype of their Gran Sport derailleur, which is often credited as being the first modern derailleur - one that used a parallelogram. Of course, history being history, it’s a somewhat contentious claim that old Tullio Campagnolo gave us the first modern derailleur. A decade before, Nivex developed a parallelogram derailleur and, equally, the slanted parallelogram design we know today was developed by SunTour in 1964.
Fast forward to the 1970s and club cyclists were boasting machines with 10 speeds. Upfront there would be a beefy 52/42 and at the rear, a five-speed block offering 14-24, or even a 14-22. To put these gears into context whilst avoiding becoming a techie, you can ride their easiest gear by keeping your modern road bike on the big ring and whacking it up to the top but one cog. Oh, and remember that these machines were steel and the riders had toe-clips and bad hair-cuts.
Through the 90s and noughties, frame spacing grew, allowing manufacturers to pop in wider-ranging blocks and, eventually, cassettes when the freehub replaced the old-fashioned freewheel. Gear shifters moved from levers on the downtube to become integrated into the brake levers, giving us the modern ergo-shifter. Another thing happened: bikes got lighter with alloys and carbon entering the scene. Now, people needed bigger harder gears so they could travel faster. By the mid-nineties, the old big gear of 42-14 had become 53-11 - that’s a 50% increase in top speed, amazingly.
Zoom forward another decade and we’re seeing Team Sky and the British Track Cycling team stamping all over the traditional bastions of cycling greatness; goodbye Spain, France, and the USA - Great Britain has arrived. As Wiggins and co punished our European friends, a new breed of cyclist hit the roads - the MAMIL (Middle Aged Man In Lycra). The MAMILs loved bikes, the gear, and coffee stops, but they hated all those leg-punishing gears. Thankfully, manufacturers threw them a life ring by offering the compact chainset (50/34) and every greater cassette ranges. Today’s 11-34 cassette, as featured on the Specialized Roubaix, allows a rider to effortlessly inch forward at a brisk walking pace whereas the rider of yesteryear would be straining at the pedals.
We, just like previous generations, bitched and moaned about easy gears and how real cyclists didn’t need them. And, then a funny thing happened, we tried them. Wow, easier gears mean your legs become less tired, you can ride further, and the whole experience is so much more fun. Don’t believe me? Look at the gears the pro’s now use during mountain stages in the grand tours: 32 tooth cassettes and some riders using compact chainsets, no shit.
The roll-a-coaster of gearing has come a long way over the past century. The future has much to offer: wider gear ranges, internal gearboxes, and automatic shifting are all around the corner. But, all this said, I’m always in my happy place when I’m riding single-speed - It’s so raw and natural. Maybe, after all, Henri had a point when he said, “As for me, give me a fixed gear!”
Photo Credit: Jeremias Radny on Unsplash