tour de france team time trial huffy
These were branded Huffy for the sponsorship, but were made for us by Ben Serotta. This is a Tour de France race bike and used a smaller front wheel so you could get closer to the guy in front of you. Bullhorn bars were as aero as we had. They are cut off and flipped over drop bars.
We mainly used these small-front-wheeled bikes for team time trials, not individuals. When your pull was over and you went to drop back you could quickly throw the bike underneath you and then whip around to the other side and create a tighter slipstream, not have to put so much effort in to catching up.
Radial laced bladed spokes on the front wheel, not super durable but supposedly faster. Again, the best technology we had.
The position on this was actually not uncomfortable. The measurements are the same as when we were in the drops on our road bikes.
The rear wheel is a touch tighter to shorten the wheelbase, but not too much as it would have made the bike really squirrely.
Gearing is a 54 or 55-13, taller than standard gearing. Back then we spun, we were pretty good at spinning and keeping our cadence high. In team TT it’s important that we really stayed smooth and not accelerate too quickly and not slow down too much. With a higher cadence you could control that better.