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Oliver Schick
Paris Roubaix Gear
This is about how bikes were used as opposed to the bikes themselves.
The image below is taken from the front cover of Cycling for September 12th 1956. The rider is Dave Keeler(Veg C & AC) and he is on his way to winning the North Road 24 with a distance of 478.70 miles.
Although the reproduction of the photo isn't good (best I could do) it can be seen that Dave is using the final version of the Cambio Corsa gear (change lever visible on the RH seat stay). He said he used mostly 78" into the wind and 94" on the tailwind sections - so not a lot of changing. It's hard to imagine anyone undertaking serious racing with this tricky gear change, but he went on to get the LEJOG record using the same gear the following year.
The main competition came from Alan Blackman (North Rd) who was on 78" fixed and who led in the early stages but abandoned at 350 miles when over 15 minutes down. To put Keeler's ride in perspective, the second place went t0 J.A. Hanning (also Veg.) who finished with 462.24.
So, a great ride, but I think he would have done better with a sensible derailleur.
You may also say that it's clear some people have got too much time on their hands during this lockdown!