Did We Need That Editorial?

 An editorial in Cycling Weekly reminded me of why I stopped reading some bicycle-related publications and websites.

“Are rim brake bikes still needed in 2024?” wonders James Shurbsall. 

The real question, to me, is whether disc brakes were ever needed on any but a few bikes such as tandems, where they have been used for about half a century. As Eben Weiss pointed out, they are the “innovation” nobody asked for.

While Shurstall gives space to two rim-brake devotees, he clearly slants his piece toward the notion that such braking systems are obsolete.  And he uses Colnago’s introduction of an ultra-expensive frame set that takes integrated rim brakes—but is compatible only with electronic shift systems—as a “straw man” for his argument.

I can only wonder whether one of the bike manufacturers offering only disc-brake models paid him to write his piece—or Cycling Weekly to publish it.

Boosting An "Innovation"

Although I remained, first and foremost, a road cyclist, I did a pretty fair amount of mountain biking during the '90's.

It seemed that every week, someone or another was coming up with an "innovation".  Many of them were in the area of suspension:  springs, elastomers, even air- and water-filled cartridges were employed in telescoping front forks as well as suspension systems on the rear of the frame.  And, of course, there were seatposts and even stems with suspension devices built in. E-bay is full of such stuff.

Some of those "innovations" have evolved and exist today. Others, thankfully, have been relegated to the dustbin of history, to paraphrase Marx.  (Karl or Groucho--take your pick!)  Among the latter category are almost any suspension system that relied on elastomers (as well as a few other components, such as clipless pedals, that substituted them for springs) as well as U-brakes and the lamented or lamentable (depending on your point of view) Tioga Disc Drive.

Now, as I have said in earlier posts, these "innovations", and just about every other I've seen in four decades of cycling, had been done before--in most cases, long before--they were introduced as the latest new thing.  Suspension systems of one kind or another have been around for as long as anything we would now recognize as a bicycle, as have alternatives (or things that aspired to be such) to conventional spoking for wheels.  Other "innovations" that weren't new when they were introduced include indexed shifting and hubs with integrated cog carriers--or, for that matter, just about any alternative to screwed-on freewheels that's come along.  

Another "great new" idea that came along during my mountain bike days was the "brake booster".

  


Until Shimano introduced linear-pull, or "V", brakes in 1996, mountain bikes used cantilever brakes, which mount to brazed-on bosses.  "Cantis" had been used on touring bikes and tandems for decades before that, but some mountain bikers--especially in the then-nascent subgenre of downhill riding--complained about their flexiness, fussiness and propensity for collecting mud.  The booster was an attempt to address that first complaint.  

Even after "V" brakes were introduced, some riders continued to use "boosters".  While "V"s are simpler to set up and adjust (on some bikes, anyway), they still shared the same problem with cantis:  They mounted on bosses that were rather small.  That is where most of the flex--and, in a few cases, breakage--occurred, especially with the hard,sudden braking that's so often a part of off-road riding. 

While some riders had legitimate use for boosters, I suspect others used them as fashion statements, as the boosters--like so many other mountain bike parts and accessories of that time--were available in a rainbow of colors.

Or, if you cared more about weight than color, you could get your booster in titanum:

To me, titanium boosters never made sense because, as strong as titanium is, it's more flexible than steel or aluminum alloy.  But, if you had other titanium parts--or a titanium frame--you didn't want anything that clashed!

As with so many other "innovations", brake boosters weren't an innovation.  Indeed, back in the 1960s and 1970's, Spence Wolf was making them for the center-pull brakes found on most touring bikes of that time:

Yes, he is the same Spence Wolf I mentioned a few days ago:  the one who retrofitted Campagnolo Nuovo Record derailleurs with extra-long cages he made.  He founded Cupertino Bike Shop in the 1950s and presided over it for a quarter-century.  He was main importer and vendor of Alex Singer frames in the US, and he and "Fritz" Kuhn of Kopp's Cycles were probably the leading Cinelli dealers.

I suspect that most of the mountain bikers with whom I rode--indeed, most mountain bikers--had no idea of who Spence Wolf was, let alone that he was responsible for one of the "new" ideas some of them adopted!

Before EX, It Was CLB

In 1978, Shimano introduced its Dura Ace "EX" gruppo.  It was hailed (at least by Shimano's marketing department) as revolutionary.  Indeed, the gruppo included "innovations" that cyclists who didn't know much about the history of cycling (which would have included me) would have seen as world-changing.

As with most "innovations", they had been done before.  Features that distinguished this new gruppo, aside from its light weight and distinctive appearance, included "dropped" pedals with axles that were shorter but of larger diameter than others.  That was supposed to make the pedal/crank interface stiffer, and putting the pedal platform below the line of the axle was supposed to be both more ergonomic and aerodynamic than traditional setups.  I never tried it myself, for the same reasons most cyclists I know didn't:  Those pedals and cranks were not interchangeable with any others.  

Speaking of the cranks:  They were very nice, and included a one-key release, eliminating the need for a crank remover tool.  That is one "innovation" that has endured.  Another is one that many of us are riding today:  a "freehub" with a cassette carrier integrated into the hub body.  Until that time, almost every derailleur-equipped bike, as well as those with single-speed freewheels, used freewheels that screwed onto the hub body.  

Of course, the "Uniglide" hub, as Shimano would call it, was not a new idea.  SunTour made a hub with an integrated cassette carrier--the "UnitHub--a decade earlier; half a decade before that, Cinelli offered its "Bivalent" hub, which is often seen as the predecessor of modern cassette hubs.  But, in part through aggressive marketing campaigns, Shimano's cassette system is the one that displaced screw-on freewheels as the standard for bikes of any and all kinds.

One more "innovation" that wasn't was the brakes, which I liked.  The extension that held the cable adjuster and quick release was shortened, and a stiffener was added between it and the main part of the brake arm.  And the quick release was one most cyclists hadn't seen before:  It rotated and had fewer moving parts than the ones found on Campagnolo and other brakes.

CLB Professional

Surprise, surprise:  Three years earlier, CLB introduced their "Professional", a brake with a similar profile--and the same kind of quick release.  If I were a collector or simply wanted to build a bike strictly based on the "cool" factor of the parts, I would probably choose the CLB Pro.  It and the titanium-bolted Galli Professional, which came out that same year (as did the SunTour Cyclone derailleurs), were the lightest brakes of their time.

CLB Competition, c. 1950

Now, the few Americans who bought and used CLB (Charles Lozier Bourgoin, the founder of the company) Pros probably thought the quick release was novel.  Actually, CLB had been using it--though in less-refined iterations--as far back as the 1940's, when they first started making brakes.  Interestingly, the company's center-pulls--introduced  in the early '50's and based heavily on the Mafac's product--used cable hangers that included a very similar quick release mechanism.

What got me to thinking about all of this?  Well, I was looking for some parts on eBay when I came across this:

It appears to be a later or lower-priced version of the Professional.  What really struck me, though, was the "funky" (as the listing's copy aptly puts it) green and white finish. As far as I knew, CLB, being the very traditional and very French company that it was, never offered their components in color besides silver.  Actually, with the exception of the Professional, most of their brakes were, well, not finished at all, from all appearances:  They had a dull grey aluminum color.  Mafacs, by comparison, seemed like jewelry.

Although that green and white brakeset is probably 30 or more years old, it would fit right in with the graphics on many new bikes!

Apparently, CLB ceased to exist a few years after they were acquired by Sachs in 1984. Three years earlier, Sachs also bought Huret, Maillard and Sedis--three of the mainstays of the French bicycle industry.  While components were manufactured in France and marketed under the Sachs/Huret, Sachs/Maillard and Sachs/Sedis names for  a few years before becoming simply Sachs, the CLB name seems to have died not long after its acquisition.  

But CLB's designs live on, in other forms:  There are brakes with similar quick releases.  And the aerodynamic shapes of today's brakes owe something to the design of the Professional.

Something Else That Isn't New, And Something That's Even Better

So...You think Shimano introduced the low-profile cantilever brake as part of its then-new XTR mountain bike group of components in 1992.

Well, when I first saw those XTR low-profile brakes, I had my suspicions.  Like most Shimano "innovations", some other company had tried it before.  Some, like the dual-pivot brakes by GB, Altenberger and Weinmann, didn't work very well, and Shimano was the first component manufacturer to make it work.  Others, like indexed derailleur shifting and hubs with integrated cassette bodies, were successful in earlier iterations (in both cases, from SunTour), but the cycling public wasn't--for various reasons--ready for them.

So...It probably wouldn't surprise you to learn that Shimano didn't invent the low-profile cantilever brake after all:

I don't know when this brake was made.  I'm guessing that they came as original equipment on the bike and, from what else I saw on the bike--a Motobecane city or utility bike--it was made in the 1960s, or even earlier.  Perhaps the brakes were made by one of the familiar but now-extinct manufacturers like Mafac, CLB or Weinmann.  Or they might have been made by some other company that went out of business even earlier than those firms.  

A sign announcing the bike was for sale hung from its top tubes.  The price was pretty low.  I thought about buying it, except that I don't have the time or resources to restore it.  Its owner might have ridden it for years without lubing (let alone replacing) the chain or cables, or cleaning and greasing the bearings.  But, as you know from reading this, that's something I would never do if I could help it.

Also, the logistics of getting the bike to my place would have been difficult, to say the least, for reasons I will reveal in a future post (possibly tomorrow).

In the meantime, I'll leave you with another interesting bike I saw today.  Given the way it was parked, I couldn't take better photos.  

You know that at some point, this bike was owned by someone who rode a lot--and not just from the French Cycle Touring Society sticker on the fender.

I'm guessing that the bike originally had dropped handlebars and, possibly, a Brooks or Ideale leather saddle.  Should we be upset that the bike now has flat bars and a thicker saddle?  Although I would have liked to see the bike in its "original" state, if the bars and seat are the thing that makes the bike a rider rather than a wall hanging, I won't complain.

The frame is made of Vitus 888--in its time, the chief European rival to Reynolds 531 and Columbus SL or SP. Also, the components are among the best of their time:

Now, you know the Specialities TA crankset, Huret Duopar derailleurs and Maxicar hubs spell "top of the line touring bike."  But this bike's owner (or builder) knew a thing or two:  the front sported a Mafac Racer brake, but the rear featured a Mafac Raid.  (Can't you just see and hear the bated breath and Velo Orange and Compass Cycles?)  And those pedals, from Specialites TA:  possibly the finest quill pedals ever made.  

My favorite feature, though, is this:

No, it's not a funky shifter for a front derailleur.  Instead, the lever operates this:

Some cyclists believed that when Sanyo chainstay-mounted dynamos were made (in the 1980s), they were the best available. I never used one myself, but I knew a few cyclists who did.  All claimed the generator was more efficient than any other available at the time--as long as the tire wasn't knobby or slicked by snow, ice, mud or oily rainwater.

Whatever you want to say, Meral bicycles reflected a lot of attention to detail.  It's too bad we didn't see more of them in the US.

(Yes, that last sentence is a clue as to why I decided not to buy the Motobecane with the low-profile cantilever brakes!)