Aero Bikes: History

Here’s a little more on the history behind aerodynamic bicycle frames; a subject that I touched on in my previous blog about the US team bikes.

In the mid 1970s there was a craze for drilling holes in components to save weight. Soon no component part of the bicycle was left untouched, with the possible exception of handlebars and stems for obvious reasons; although a few riders with death wish tendencies even tried that.



Steel frames were not immune, with cutouts in the bottom bracket shell and lugs. Towards the end of the 1970s I saw a few British Time Trial Frames with slots cut in the head tube, and matching slots in the steering column inside.

Soon bikes had so many holes in them, they didn’t have a shadow.

Aside from reducing the reliability of the frame or component, people began to point out that any gain in weight saving was offset by the increased air turbulence and the resulting drag of air passing through slots and holes.



People began to think seriously about aerodynamics. At the same time the East Germans were experimenting with aero bikes and helmets; I was one of the first in England to work with the idea in the late 1970s. I made a press tool to form round tubes into an oval shape. I also added an aerofoil behind the head tube and bottom bracket shell.

After the US team bike fiasco I lost interest but I do remember building one at the end of 1980. I had just started work for Masi in Southern California, and they had a sample set of aero tubes. (Japanese I believe.)

I built one Aero Masi frame for the New York Show in February 1981. It was built into a complete bike, light blue in color, and with all the Masi decals it was a very unique and classy looking machine. I wonder where that one is now; definitely one of a kind.


The aero steel frame never really caught on and was only around for about two or three years. The tubes were difficult and therefore expensive to produce. The frame had to be of a lug-less construction, not conducive to mass production. The biggest drawback was the extra weight because the tubes had to be straight gauge. They couldn’t be double butted like round tubes.

Footnote: The pictures are of an English built track pursuit frame built around 1978. Note the extended seat tube, round at the top to accept the seat post. The fork crown was a modified Ron Kitching crown that took the old style narrow Reynolds fork blades, and was hand filed into the aero shape. Also, see details of the aerofoil behind the BB and head tube.

I was never in a movie, but at one time, my arm was in a cast.

My good friend Steve from California recently suggested that reminiscing about when we were in the best shape of our lives was for when we are done riding. When the time comes for me, I already know when that was, 1970 and 1971. It started literarily by accident.

I was living in England, it was early in the 1970 season. I was out training alone after dark and was rounding a bend on a relatively quiet country road when a motorcycle traveling in the opposite direction, taking the same bend on the wrong side of the road, met me head on.

The motor cycle, ridden by a sixteen year old with no driver’s license or insurance, with a youth of similar age riding on the back. These kids were on a big ol’ British Norton and were racing some others who were following also on motorcycles. Because they did not see, a light from an approaching car figured it was safe to take this particular corner on the inside.

All I remember of the impact was a huge headlight coming straight for me; the next moment I was lying on my back in the road. What actually happened was that the motorcycle passed slightly to my right; the handlebars of the motorcycle passed over my bike but hit my right forearm. Remember this was England so I was riding on the left side of the road.

The impact threw me up in the air, doing a complete summersault, I landed on my back in the road. Rather like a wrestler, doing a move called “The Irish Whip.” It happed so fast I do not remember that part, but know that is what happened because the back of my head was slightly grazed, (We didn’t wear helmets back then.) and the back was ripped out of my sweatshirt.

The motorcycle also went down and the two youths picked up some road rash as they slid across the road and ended up against a wooden barn on the opposite side. Apart from this they were uninjured. I was not so lucky; my right forearm was shattered, broken in three places. My bike on the other hand was completely untouched, not even a scratch in the paint.

I experienced the worst pain in my life that night lying in a hospital with my arm a temporary sling hung by my bed. The next morning they operated, and had to put a stainless steel plate in my arm to hold it all together. The plate is still there today, and I wouldn’t know it except for a six inch operation scar to remind me.

They put my arm in a cast from my hand to my armpit, with my elbow held at 90 degrees. This cast was on for five months; I could drive a car and do a few other things but couldn’t work. I decided to keep riding my bike and rigged it up with a single fixed gear and a brake lever in the center of the handlebars so I could ride with one hand.

I rode every day as much as 60 to 80 miles. Weekends I would ride with the other guys in my cycling club. They cut me no slack and would drop me on the first hill we came to. I was riding with my left hand only so had to sit down on the hills, and could not get out of the saddle to climb. I would chase the group for miles; sometimes catching up, other times I never saw them again.

Weekdays I would sometimes ride with an older retired guy. He was probably about the age I am now and he kicked my butt; he told me months later that I had the same affect on him. He kept telling himself that he couldn’t let a cripple with one arm beat him, and at the same time I was thinking ‘I can’t let this old man beat me.’

When the cast came off after five months, the doctors were amazed; my right arm had muscle in it. My left arm got a hell of a work out and I have heard that if you work one arm or leg it will affect the other. So riding my bike was probably the best thing I could have done for my recovery.

The end of that year and the one that followed was my best season ever. The five months that my arm was in a cast I had been doing over 400 miles a week, and doing it all on a single 69 inch fixed gear. I could spin and was as strong as a horse on the hills; there is no doubt in my mind when I was in the best shape of my life.