I own a late 40s Italian bicycle equipped with Cambio Corsa. It's now a display piece because I don't want to maintain the glued on tubular tires or risk breaki

I own a late 40s Italian bicycle equipped with Cambio Corsa. It's now a display piece because I don't want to maintain the glued on tubular tires or risk breaking something irreplaceable. However in the past I have taken it out on a couple short, flat rides to test the system, enough to make a couple observations about using it. When changing gears, it doesn't feel like there is much risk of the wheel slipping forward out of the dropouts. The dropouts themselves are angled up and back, which helps prevent that. Also, when changing gears you are sitting back, putting weight on the seat and changing the weight distribution of the bike to favor the rear. This also counteracts the tendency of the wheel to come forward. The action of the chain only pulls the axle forward in the dropouts when shifting to a lower gear (higher tooth count cog on the freewheel, closer to the wheel spokes). There isn't much risk of "overshifting" the chain to a point where it will pull the axle out of the dropouts, simply because the chain would just contact the spokes or a spoke protector and slide back down into gear (unless something is really broken). Also, you can see from the photos in the article how differently the dimensions of racing bicycle frames were fitted to riders back then. Modern racing bikes tend to have a lot of seatpost extension and longer handlebar stems, which shift the rider's weight forward on the bike. A simplified explanation is that this improves aerodynamics and certain handling characteristics, at the cost of requiring the rider have better core strength and flexibility. In contrast, the photos in the article show typical mid-20th century bicycle fit, with much less seatpost extension and shorter stems. Compared to modern racers, Coppi and Bartali sit father back, with their butt closer to the top tube. This puts the Cambio Corsa system in closer reach and the weight distribution has a more stable, rearward bias. The action of reaching back to change gears would feel treacherous and destabilizing on a modern racing bike, but would be a bit more comfortable on the bikes of the time. This is all said with the big caveat that I have never ridden my Cambio Corsa bike in a long distance or competitive scenario. Undoubtedly it's still a challenging system to master. I can imagine the extreme difficulty of operating it on the unpaved, bumpy climbs typical of that era. Edit: Here is a link to scans of the original patent drawings for the Cambio Corsa. It shows the mechanical details- click on the "Pages" tab to see all the scanned pages of the patent. https://www.disraeligears.co.uk/site/french_patent_899402_-_campagnolo.html https://www.disraeligears.co.uk/site/french_patent_899402_-_...