SkipdiverJohn
Deplorable Brexiteer
- Location
- London
I'd agree with your description of the Pioneer's qualities, I'm really pleased to have got mine as it's a well built bike in the same way the old 3-speeds were. Now I can't say if the R501 frame influences this, but it seems more lively and not quite so laid back in the way it rides compared to a traditional roadster. It's not twitchy and doesn't try to catch you out, yet I wouldn't really describe it as lazy, more purposeful. I looked up the Pioneer frame geometry and it's 73* parallel. which is a hallway house between the 74-75* you'd expect on an all-out racer and the 72* or less traditionally found on tourers and utility frames. To me, it doesn't feel like a pootle bike, more like a bike that's capable of being ridden fairly briskly and covering reasonable distances without much fuss.
i think the SA gearing can be at least partially explained by changes in lifestyle and body composition through the decades. If you go back to the heyday of hub geared bikes, say from the 1930's up to the 1960's, many more people did manual occupations involving physical effort and people generally weren't overweight like they are today. What weight a rider carried would tend to be useful work-performing muscle, not superfluous fat. I believe the average level of fitness and physical strength was higher 50 years ago than it is today, and with less labour-saving gadgets around, physical exertion was part of everyday life.
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