From the 1970s you see plenty of brake calipers, brake levers, gear levers, derailleurs and sprockets that are pierced with small holes. Why was this done? For aesthetic reasons or to save weight? Although a sprocket or brake lever pierced with holes also has something beautiful, the reason is mainly to save weight.
The question is, of course, how much weight can you save to drill through components that are already made of light material with small holes? For an ordinary everyday cyclist this does not matter much, but for professional cyclists who are so passionate about their profession and so concerned with their weight and that of their bicycle, it is not abnormal.
Just think of Marco Pantani who had his mechanic pull his handlebar tape so tight and hard because he then used less tape, so that his bike weighed a few grams, although it must have been milligrams, before.
Or Eddy Merckx's Colnago bike with which he beat Ole Ritter's hour record in Mexico City in 1972. The handlebars and single cog are also seriously drilled out here.
Some professional cyclists even went so far as to have their seatpost, handlebars and stem pierced, balancing on the edge with the sturdiness of their road bike.
Nowadays this is no longer done because the material (mainly carbon) they use nowadays is very light and the bikes are sometimes even fitted with extra weights to reach the minimum weight of 6.80 kg set by the UCI. So a bit the reverse.
Some manufacturers or bicycle mechanics combined the weight saving with the aesthetic and colored the different holes with different colors. Especially the gear levers were sometimes heavily addressed and only the edge remained. As a result, the brand disappeared completely. A disgrace to some, beautiful to others, there is no arguing about flavors.
Below you can see some nice examples of drilled, perforated components.
Do you have examples that you would like to show in this article, send me an email to info@vintagefiets.be
In addition to the drilled-out components, you also found shoes in the 1970s in which plenty of holes were present. To save weight or to ventilate the feet?
