Yipee - my NOS chainset has arrived...Retro bike by proxy?

[Augustus]

My NOS M952 chainset just turned up courtesy of the friendly chaps at Wildside and I'm ditching Hollowtech II (hideous IMO) and going backwards to bigger rings. Oohh, looks so swish. M960 Hollowtech II anyone? Can't wait to fit it this weekend. This takes me back ten years.

Anyway, got me thinking, all this talk of what is retro etc...

Can a bike be Retro by proxy? My modern hardtail is looking increasingly old fashioned and it made me think that all this talk of retroness and what it means...

And I figured its a state of mind. Like a road movie in that the journey is the destination, well, my state of mind is well and truely stuck at rigid hardtail with a 0 deg stem, scaffolding pole seatpost extension and (now) proper big chainset. It's retro by proxy. (Or have I mis-understood the term proxy?)

Anyway, I'm excited - can you tell?

 

[sylvain]

I've got a set of NOS 48/36/24 5-bolt XTR rings & spider to go on my XTR cranks when the current rings wear out - now that is proper big

 

[thecynic]

Just picking up me Pipedream with that oldschool gearing

 

[Augustus]

Sylvain,

my station commuter 93 rockhopper comp is running a 26/36/50 - now that's proper proper big. Good old friction thumbshifters.

 

[sylvain]

Okay - until recently I was running a single Pace 54t on my GT commuter

Ran it single with a 17t though.

 

[Augustus]

You win.

 

[sylvain]

It was a TA actually.

 

[Stick Legs]

Back in the day I always ran 24 36 48 (the last 48t ring I owned is now on Scarlett's Kona, a gold Middleburn one).

Now I am using 26 36 46 and am quite happy, though I may go to 26 34 46 to stay in the middle ring a bit longer, I have only ever used the granny ring to catch the chain anyway, always figured that if you 'aint doing it in 36-28 then you probably would be more efficient pushing!