School's Out

Who's your daddy? And more on cycling syle

Jul 02, 2025

I was having a cuppa joe the other morning, on the patio this very blessedly nice day here in late June, and I was watching Professor of Rock discuss Alice Cooper and the absolute dead ass jam called School’s Out.

Now, Alice is one of the good guys in Rock and Roll, and I have literally never heard a bad word about the man. Early in the video, they discussed a young Alice, known then as Vince Furnier …

Now, trust me when I tell you this with absolute certainty: As a high schooler he is a dead ringer for your boy, this here bike riding duck.

And here’s the fun part: there is a non-zero chance he actually is my father, as I am adopted. He would have been 18 in the summer of 66, as I was born in February of 1967.

When I was in the Oregon Marching Band in the late 80’s, we played a breakdown of School’s Out. At the time, it was one of my favorite jams, because as a drummer, you are just hitting it nice and hard. Here’s the 2011 OMB with School’s Out for an example;

Just a sweet jam. You can see the tenors and the snares whip their sticks about. The band still plays this song to this day, probably about a dozen or so times a game.

Now, I’m not saying that Alice Cooper is my father… I’m just saying there is a non zero chance he is. And, if by chance you know the man, grab his Starbucks cup so we can swab some DNA and find out. DNA don’t lie.

I came up in cycling in the late 80’s, and I am of the considered opinion that the aesthetic of the era was peak cycling. I’ve mentioned it the previous ‘Stack offering, and I’m gonna continue to go thru that.

The first time thru, I talked about helmets and socks. Today, gonna get away from the clothing and talk about bike parts.

Here’s a typical late 80’s professional road racing bicycle;

This is the Eddy Merckx brand bicycle ridden by the American 7-11 Team at the time. That is an absolutely stunning bicycle. If I saw this frame at a used sports store, in my size, I absolutely would snatch it up. It’s steel, of course it is. Almost all bikes were steel back then. The rare Aluminum ones were pretty much dog shit.

I pick this Merckx bike ridden by 7-11 because this year, the European World Tour team Uno-X rode a modern day version of the bike during the spring classic of Liege-Bastogne-Liege;

The contrasts are so stark. And if you were to time-trial back in time and told 80’s me that this is where bicycle tech is going, I’d burn you at the stake you time trialing witch.

I think so much of cycling is better these days, and it’s not even close. Bikes are faster. Bicycles are more aerodynamic (that equals faster), they’re lighter (which is faster) because carbon fiber is everywhere. Disc brakes are massive performance improvement over rim brakes. I used to not believe it, but I’m never going back to rim brakes. 12 speed cassettes are standard, as opposed to the 7 speed ones in the photo above.

Look, that ain’t the discussion for the day, I want to actually drill down to the mechanical rear derailleur used by modern professionals, and ask, does it look better than old school, late 80’s gear?

Here’s a close up of that part on the UNO-X bike;

Notice the color matched, oversized pulley wheels for a company called Ceramic Speed. That’s a nearly $1000 add-on for a nearly $1000 component, the rear derailleur. If you’re a professional looking to win an important Spring Classic, like L-B-L, it can be the difference. If you’re a normal dude, rolling up to the group ride and you got this on your bike? You’re probably a douche.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane and compare and contrast merely the aesthetic of the rear derailleur. Here is the Shimano Dura Ace rear derailleur common from the late 80’s;

Here’s a Campagnolo Super Record rear mech, and I believe it to be absolutely stunning and beautiful;

Both of these are cable actuated, connected to shifters mounted on the down tube. I find these to be elegant, even beautiful. Let’s compare and contrast with the modern day, fully electronic offerings.

First, the Shimano Dura Ace RD-R9250

What do you sacrifice in the name of quick and efficient shifter performance? Because I think this is ugly. I would even go so far as to say Fugly. Better? Sure, I won’t deny that, I guess.

It actually looks better than Campy;

Better shifting, better performance, but ugly AF.

When I say better performance, I mean that when you are maxing out 400W of power up LaRedoubt climb, and you tap that upshift button on the shifter/brake combo-lever, it absolutely will hit that next gear instantly with little doubt. Under intense pedal pressure, the performance of this shifting system will not fail.

Back in the day, with the shifter on the downtube, you better have preselected your gear before you hit the climb because if you try to reach down and get it while drilling the tempo? On the climb? Nah. It might hit the cog, it might not, and chances are you put so much stress on the chain, that you risk breaking it, or you might skip the chain on cog as the chain struggles to settle in, and before you know it … you lose a second or two, and that’s the difference between winning and losing.

The shifters on bikes, prior to about 1988, were not indexed, where one click is one shift. You would have to massage it into place, based on feel, and every manufacturer was a bit different in how it felt. And don’t get me started on hitting the shifter with your knee and the problems that can create.

What got me on this whole modern components look like shjit thought is the latest wireless gravel/mountain rear mech offering from Shimano, the GRX RX827;

It’s chunky, I think that’s my main issue with it. It’s not sleek, elegant. I just don’t find it as beautiful as the old school stuff. But I can say the same thing about cars.

Who doesn’t think this, a 1970 Chevy Chevelle,

ISN’T obviously more stunningly beautiful than this, the 2025 Chevrolet Chevelle SS/70

I’ll give Chevrolet credit for calling back to their muscle car glory days. But …

the same, but different. The difference is important.

Am I gonna give a pass to SRAM, my group set of choice? No. But the difference between SRAM and the other two, is that SRAM wasn’t around in the 80’s to compare. Their first performance road group set, RED, came out in 2007.

Let’s go ahead and compare all the same. First Gen RED, from ‘07;

Yeah, that looks pretty good.

And the modern, 2024 AXS road version;

My opinion, and this is only my opinion? I think the style of modern SRAM is much better than anything on offer from Shimano or Campagnolo, I do. I also think it still compares well with the analog version which debuted in 2007. Of all the modern derailleurs I’m looking at, it’s the one that looks closest to what we had in the late 80’s.

The whole impetus for looking at the changes in Road Racing styles was the 1989 Tour de France. In that Tour, as you all know, Greg LeMond won on the final day, by a mere 8 seconds. What did Greg ride? Was it Shimano, the upstart new group on the block, ridden by 7-11 and … well, that was about it. Or was it the old standby used by nearly every other pro squad, Campagnolo? Obviously, Campy. Right? Right?

Nope. His ADR team was the only pro team using Mavic, a french manufacturer.

Gotta be real here, as the self appointed arbiter of cycling style for this ‘Stack … that is one ugly ass rear derailleur.

I kept going back to this, editing for clarity and grammar and what not. But, nearly a week on, I need to hit send and just let it go into the ones and zeros of Substack.

The Tour starts on Saturday, and I was thinking of doing a preview, or commenting on someone else’s preview from YouTube. But I don’t know if I need to do that.

The fact is, I don’t see anyone beat Tadej. I see him rolling to Tour win number four. Jonas Vingegaard is the only one who has beaten him, and he has two Tour victories and a super strong team at his disposal. But ever since his crash last year in Andalusia, he hasn’t been the same. I just don’t see it.

I do think there are some dark horses out there, and maybe I’ll talk about them. We’ll see. Gotta put this one to bed first.

A duck on a bike

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