when and why did things get so STEEP

2manyoranges

Old School Grand Master
Feedback
View
Cambridge being Cambridge I stepped into a quiet residential road only to have a bike sweep swiftly around the corner and narrowly miss me. Normal stuff. But it was a very interesting ancient 1950s thing. With VERY slack forks. Lots and lots of forward sweep. And then in the opposite direction came a run-of-the-mill 2000s cheap mtb with - yep - 69 ish head angle. My latest mountain bike builds (Cotic, Transition) have involved slackness - around 63 degrees. But in the 1990s and early 2000s steep was still a thing. This is from the 1930s - competition frame - not steep.

1753114334978.webp
 
My personal thoughts are that in road racing steeper angles and tighter wheel base were largely possible because of improving road conditions. First half of the century there were more unpaved roads. The development in mtb-ing seems the reverse, adopting slacker geo for demanding terrain.

image-17.jpeg.webp
 
72' parallel were the go to angles for RR'ing in the 50's and early 60's and then 73' parallel became the norm. I remember Holdsworth using 75' on team bikes in the 70's (or was it 80's?) but they soon stopped that! Most of my more recent frames have been 74' parallel but I did have a TT bike in the 80's which was 75' parallel. I rode it for everything.

What are today's frame angles for the average pro' frame?
 
Back
Top