If you think that's crazy, read about the old Tour de France races. The stages were significantly longer than they are now (300 km to 480 km), and for a while the bikes only had two speeds. To change which gear you were in you had to take the wheel off and flip it around.

In the 1913 Tour, Eugène Christophe broke his fork. He walked two hours to the nearest blacksmith, spent 3 hours repairing the fork himself (otherwise it would have been outside help), and he still got a time penalty because he let a little boy pump the bellows for him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Christophe#1913_an...