The flip flop hub. The man's gear and the woman's gear for climbing. They had derailleurs but it was unmanly to use them for many years. It was bad if enough if you had to flip your hub and lower yourself to the level where you had to use the woman's gear. A derailleur was for a wuss. A real man would only supplement his cork or leather brake pad action by dragging his feet, but only to save his life so he could continue racing to represent his bicycle company. He doped by ingesting either, nitroglycerine, alcohol and Strychnine. Dirty tricks and sabotage were common. We need a road race with twenty 400+ Km stages where you have a steel frame, wood wheels, tubular tires, flip flop hub, cork brake pads and no support of assistance with mechanical repairs. You have to wrap spare tires around yourself so you look like the Michelin Man. Those old time races were made from a different mold.
