- Hey Emma, do you remember back along to yesteryear?
Before the cutting edge science that we have nowadays?
Before power meters, altitude camps, color television even?
- Well, not really.
I don't have much of an idea about that.
And you are definitely too young to remember it.
- Okay, you're right.
I haven't got a clue but,
I have read a book about the old guys that used to race.
- Okay - Some of the things they did
in the pursuit of success was crazy.
(rock music)
- Hey Emma, do you fancy steak for breakfast?
- No, I don't, thanks, but why?
- But, surely you want to get over
the Campolongo in the front group.
- [Emma] Ya, but okay.
How is steak going to help?
- Well, the old boys reckon that
eating a steak for breakfast would help
your cycling performance and your climbing.
- Raw? Steak?
No, that's gross.
I'll leave that, but thank you.
- [Chris] Well Emma, if you don't want to eat the steak,
I guess you could always sit on it.
- [Emma] Excuse me?
- Ya, the old boys used to reckon
an raw steak in your shammy was
the perfect cure for saddle sores.
- No way, that's disgusting.
I'm going to stick with shammy cream.
- Well, my shammy cream kind of ran out yesterday so,
did you get the steak I asked for?
- Oh, is that why you wanted a steak?
- Ya. - Ah, I have
some bad news for you.
They had actually run out of steak at the shop but,
I got you this salami.
Do you want to sit on that?
- [Chris] Well, I guess I could try and insert it.
How about juice, Emma?
- Ya, that's all the rage these days.
High in nutrients, it's easy to digest.
Winning. - Ya, well, back in the '60s
all the riders were on the juice.
- Ya, I know about that sadly.
- No, no.
Not that kind of juice.
Carrot juice.
One rider is rumored to have spent
14 days living purely off carrot juice.
And now, while this wasn't a 365 day a year thing,
it certain was extreme.
- That is crazy if you ask me but,
hang on, weren't the races quite a lot longer
in those days?
- Uh, ya.
Dawn till dusk, I think.
- Ah so maybe he wanted the carrot juice
to improve his night time vision.
- (laughs) Ya, maybe.
I'm not sure it would have helped his
daytime performance too much, though.
- No, no I think he would have been a bit hungry
after two weeks of carrot juice.
- Maybe he was trying to lose weight.
If you thought their food choices were weird,
you should check out their drinking habits.
Specifically, their lack of willingness
to drink water.
- What, you mean like functional dehydration?
- Well, hardly.
No water at all for seven hours in the heat of summer,
maybe just a whisky to take the edge off the thirst
and a little bit of the pain.
- [Emma] Seriously?
- These guys really took it to the extreme.
The longer you could go without fluid,
the tougher you were perceived to be.
In fact, if they ever saw you drink water,
they just thought you were soft.
- But, I mean, they did drink water, didn't they?
At least in races?
- Well, I assume so.
They certainly had bottles with them.
One rider was so convinced that
the weight of his bike mattered more than anything else
that at the bottom of each climb
he would take the Baton out of its cage
and drop it into his back jersey pocket.
- What?
That's ridiculous.
I mean, the total weight would have been the same.
- Well, I know that and you know that,
maybe the others didn't.
Was he trying to play mind games with them?
- I don't know.
If it works, then I'm keen to try, frankly.
- Ya, why not?
This bygone era really was a little special.
Although, there is perhaps a little sense
in this next one.
One rider is rumored to have adjusted his
saddle height raising it a little
for the mountain stages presumably
for the extra leverage.
He would then lower it again befor the flatter stages,
perhaps to allow his legs to spin faster
and more freely.
Hmm, this guy appears to have thought about that one.
I wonder what his name was.
Well, how about this one then?
Set yourself a marker in the distance.
Ride towards it as fast as you can.
Once you reach that point, try again.
- What?
No, I can see how that would go for me.
I would be riding for target but I'd get half way
and then just blow up.
- Well, maybe they applied a little pacing for this one.
- [Emma] How about pushing extra hard
every third peddle stroke?
- [Chris] Ha, really?
- [Emma] Well, who knows, but there was a theory
that every third downstroke should include
a big push onto the peddle to help increase
your speed up climbs,
and then to recover a little between hard pushes.
- No way.
I'm not sure I'd even have the ability to think
let alone count whilst riding up a mountain.
How about equipment?
This is the best bit.
This is where it gets truly a little mad.
Think about all the research and product development
that goes into a top-of-the-range groove set these days.
It's a pretty high tech, cutting edge world.
Well, it was back then, too.
But, before they had the bikes on the start line,
they would take a drill to pretty much
every component and drill holes into them.
Chain rings, breaks, cranks, levers, bars.
Almost no bike was left whole.
More recently still,
and this one baffles me even to this day,
Lance Armstrong--
- Whoa whoa whoa whoa, easy tiger.
We can't mention him.
- No, no.
Bear with me, it's okay.
He used to remove the front STI lever from his bars,
replace it with a break lever only
and put a downtube shifter on the frame.
All in the name of saving 20 grams.
- That's weird.
I mean that era saw some seriously bizarre
innovations, but that one for me is way top there.
- Yeah, it's just lots of effort for not a lot of gain.
- Yeah, and really inconvenient to change gear.
Well, you weren't wrong about those crazy old guys.
It's easy to see how this sport progressed from there
because if they tried those methods
frankly they'd probably try almost anything.
- Yeah, they were probably nuts, weren't they?
All of this effort for just a few seconds on a climb.
- Yup, well, if you guys want to see
some more climbing videos, click on Chris.
- Why not give us a big thumbs up if you enjoyed this video?
- Did you enjoy that sausage then, Chris?
- Well, I've had better Emma.