4 Bits Of Retro Cycling Tech You Should Know About

Matt and Jon bring you four of their favourite weird and wonderful tech pieces from the past decades... which would you love to try?

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Here at GCN, we really do love a bit of retro-tech, and we know you do too. So we thought we'd share with you some of our favourite bits of old school tech. Starting with these Spinergy Rev X wheels. Now the company was set up in the early 1990's by a former Cannondale engineer called Ralph Schlanger. With a distinctive, striking design, they certainly cut a dash in the Pulsar.

- I love what you did there, Matt. That's right, they were distinctive, certainly. I mean eight carbon spokes, essentially bonded together. You could also stiffen them up with some little Rev X inserts in there as well.

- You could indeed, and they really had, as well as distinctive design, a distinctive sound, as well.

- They certainly did.

- A little bit like a helicopter, really, wasn't it?

- Yeah!

- Now aside from ourselves, because both John and I did ride these quite amazing wheels in the 1990's. That is actually a picture of John in his back garden. Despite the pixels, he is there somewhere. This is retro after all. Now lots of other top pros used them, didn't they? Mario Cipollini when he was riding at the Seiko, Paolo Batini rode them as well. As well as Michele Bartoli, But, shat a legendary rider he was. But as the 90's progressed there're increasing stories of these wheels quite literally exploding underneath the riders, as well as other stories of them causing quite nasty and gruesome injuries as well.

- Yeah, let's face it, Matt. Essentially they were eight blades of carbon flapping around in the peloton weren't they?

- Indeed like llamas almost.

- Yeahthat's right. So in the end, in 2001 the UCI took it upon themselves to ban them, ban them in competition. And then the Spinergy Rev Xs were essentially sent to the carbon scrap heap in the sky.

- Tell you what, that despite the risk of them sort of, at any moment, exploding underneath you, they're still one of the coolest wheels ever, aren't they?

- Yeah, absolutely gutted I sold mine.

- Power pedals, the pedals that make you a winner. Oh, well that's what it says on the box anyway.

- What a tag line. Now these retro pedalling tech actually date back to 1995, he used them, and came from Norway. What was most interesting about these was the fact there was a clutch mechanism inside of the spindle, making it impossible to backpedal. Which, in theory anyway, created more leverage by adding the length of the shoe sole to the length of the crankarm during the upstroke phase of the pedal stroke.

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Retro VS Modern! 📹 http://gcn.eu/1CbcdDS
Retro VS Modern on the cobbles of Flanders 📹 http://gcn.eu/8h

Photos: © Bettiniphoto / http://www.bettiniphoto.net/ & ©Tim De Waele / http://www.tdwsport.com

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