While cycling technology continues to improve, one can easily argue that, aesthetically speaking, the bicycle peaked 40 years ago and it’s been downhill ever since. The start line was a sea of vintage machines in beautiful hues, straddled by aging dentists and adorned with glistening chrome components more evocative of jewelry than performance tools. Yet even amid all this velocipedal beauty, the Mead, with its dented tubes, faded black paint job, and utilitarian demeanor, attracted attention. — Weiterlesen www.outsideonline.com/2314111/old-out-new

Wunderbar selbstironischer Bericht über den Unterschied von 100 jährigen und modernen Rädern, und der Teilnahme mit eben solchen an der L’Eroica California.

In seiner Serie „Beyond “Compact” Dropbars“ stellt „Bike Hugger Mark V“ Alternativen zu den bekannten Dropbas vor. Hier ist Teil 3.

Once upon a time in the mid-20th century, there was a handlebar known  as the “Maes” that essentially established what we today consider the classic handlebar shape for road bikes. Not too much flare, the top flats of the bar running roughly straight outwards from the stem, lower drops not too angled away from the ramps….virtually the picture book definition of what we would define as a “dropbar”. From about 1960 on, the majority of road bikes were equipped with what could be generally considered a “Maes”-type handlebar, even as the brand itself faded away. But eventually the term “Maes” lost its usefulness as a way of differentiating the variety of handlebars that subtly evolved from the blueprint of that Maes archetype.

Link: https://www.bikehugger.com/posts/beyond-compact-dropbars-pt3-compass-maes-parallel-31-8-handlebar/