Gierige Räder August

Everything about the GT Superbike 2 is incredibly narrow.

When looking head-on, the bike virtually disappears. The head tube, for example, is just 26mm-wide from top to bottom – half as wide as a modern carbon frame. Grab a ruler to see for yourself just how incredibly narrow that is.

The incredibly narrow bottom bracket brought the pedal stance width (better known as Q-factor) down to around 100mm – roughly 40mm narrower than typical track cranks.

Is it a bike or an airplane? Such was the thought of then-UCI president Hein Verbruggen when seeing the Superbike 2 for himself. Such designs were banned shortly thereafter.

Without the structural support of seatstays, the chainstays had to be massively overbuilt. Even so, they measured less than 12mm at their thickest point, and less than 8mm at their thinnest.

The 24-inch front wheel let riders draft each other more closely in team events.