How we used to ride

 I've been cycling since my early teens - let's call that the mid 1970's. I was thinking about the heavy five speed steel bikes with 36 spoke wheels, down-tube shifters, quill stems, seat post clamps, cotter-pins, and all that good stuff. But I especially thought about the lights we used to use. I found a picture of my first set of lights on the wonderful Sheldon Brown website.

The front light took a weird three volt battery that looks like two D-cells glued together. The rear light just took two D-cells.

For a poor English boy, Ever Ready was the only option available. My local Halfords didn't carry any fancy hardware. Those batteries only ran that weak light for five or six hours and they didn't recharge so they were good for two evening rides and they weren't cheap. Fortunately, in the deep English countryside it is so dark only one rider needs their lights on so David, Kevin, and I would save money by taking turns running our lights.

When I compare them to the Schmidt dynamo, Edelux front light, and Busch & Muller brake tail light that I currently use, supplemented by Cygolite front and rear rechargeable lights, it's amazing how far the technology has come. My lighting set in 1975 cost about $7 whereas my current lights cost a total of about $500 which would have bought quite a nice used car back then. Mind you, I save a lot on batteries now.

This web page says it all so much better than I can.

I had no computer, but I did save up and buy one of these mileage counters. You mounted it on the front dropout and a peg attached to a spoke would move the device one fifth of a turn every time the wheel rotated. The device assumed I had a 27" wheel and it had gearing to display the total distance travelled. I don't think it had a reset feature so I would have to memorize the distance at the start of the ride and subtract it. I stopped using it eventually because it was so hard to read while riding and I kept forgetting the starting distance anyway.

I don't remember ever wearing a helmet, either.