It was the 80's

Carol was rummaging through old photos, and dug up this little blast from past. Brings back memories:

• Notice the large glasses and the mustache. Sorry, it was the 80's.
  
• Notice the suspenders. There was no excuse for that.
  
• Notice the hands on brakes and the frantic grin. Had just learned to ride the rollers, and was nervous
  
• This was my first ever "racing" bike. It was a mid-70's Raleigh Super Course, a decent touring bike that I incrementally upgraded with Campy Record parts.
  
• The wheels were my first-ever wheel build. They were 700c tubular (the frame was for 27" wheels -- so had extra long reach Dia-Compe brakes), Arc-en-Ciel (I believe) rims on Campy Record hubs, and probably cheap Clement Concorde tires. I trued these on the frame, and they truly sucked.
  
• Though it's hard to tell, it's set up as a fixed gear. The common wisdom back then, from the Mike Walden school, was that the first 500 miles of each season were to be on fixed gear, preferably < 60 gear inches. Made sense for southeast Michigan, where most of our hills were highway overpasses.
  
• The shoes were Brancales with wooden soles and nail-on cleats. They were also one (U.S.) size too small, but they were all I could get. So, riding in the winter was absolute torture. When I finally bought a pair of right-sized Duegi's (50 Euro) from Multigear, my feet thanked me.
  

The caption reads:

Ted Diamond of the University of Michigan Bicycle Club (far left) [ed: wish they'd keep my politics out of it!] uses a set of rollers to show how easy [ed: easy, my ass!] it is to ride even if there's snow outside