The Safari Before The Bikecentennial

On resiste a la invasion des armees; on ne resiste pas a la invasion des idees.

 Even if you have no idea of what this means, you have probably guessed that it was written by Victor Hugo because, well, he is the first French writer that comes to most people's minds.

The literal translation goes like this:  One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.  I rather prefer it to the most common translation because it keeps the symmetrical structure and somewhat echoes the sound of the original.

But, as Robert Frost once remarked, in poetry, what gets lost in translation is the poetry.   So it is with the version of the quote almost every English speaker has heard: There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

That second translation, though, came to mind when I came across some photos of something I hadn't seen in a long time:

The Safari is a fully-loaded touring bicycle Nishiki offered from 1972 until 1975:  as the 1970's Bike Boom in North America was waxing and waning.  The year after Nishiki discontinued the Safari, thousands of Americans rode all or part of the Bikecentennial.  However, euphoria about the transcontinental tour did not translate into large numbers of dedicated bicycle tourists.  So, had the Safari been made for another year, it might have translated into another year or two of production, but no more.

Julius, on his Safari re-fitted with upright bars

When the Safari was introduced, very few Americans had ever used classical bicycle touring equipment, or anything that resembled it.  So we were unfamiliar with canvas panniers and "handlebar" (more accurately, front) bags like the ones on French constructeur and English touring bikes.  As you can see in the photo, the bags that came with the Safari closely resembled bags made by Sologne, La Fuma, Karrimor, Carradice and other British and French companies.  And the Safari's bags--like the rest of the bike, made in Japan--were solidly constructed from canvas and leather, though the materials on the Japanese bags were thicker--and heavier.

Those bags were affixed to carriers attached to brazed-on fittings (rather than the clamps in use on most bikes of the time).  The carriers, made of steel, were solidly-constructed but, again, heavier than the British and French racks on which they were modeled. 

And, like the custom touring bikes of yore, the Safari came with a generator lighting set.  Strangely, the generator was clamped onto the front fork rather than a brazed-on rear stay fitting (or even one on the front fork).  But it was said to be a good, reliable set that gave, for its time, good light output.

If one were to take away the bags, racks, brazed-on fittings, generator light and other accessores (such as the pump), one would have been left with the Nishiki Kokusai (which became the International in 1974), a solid bike with a smooth ride and a drivetrain that shifted better than most others of its time (thanks in large part to the SunTour VGT rear derailleur).  The Kokusai/International sold well (I had one) but the Safari did not.  In fact, it was derided by some of the same people, including bike shop employees and owners, who touted the Kokusai/International.  

One reason is that most Americans had never seen, let alone used, touring bags like the ones on the Safari.  The state-of-the-art panniers and other bags  Kirtland, Eclipse, Cannondale and other American companies offered at that time were made from pack nylon and, later, Cordura. They were much lighter and didn't need the special racks and fittings the older canvas bags required.  Plus, the American bags could be had in a rainbow of colors.  (Isn't it funny that back then, nearly all bike components were silver--black was a big deal--but the bags were brightly-colored.  Now we can get neon-hued rims and such, but most bags come only in black!) 

Also, because most of the ten-speeds sold during the Bike Boom didn't have fenders, most new American cyclists came to believe that only clunkers and kids' bikes had them. We used to joke that you knew a "serious" cyclist by the mud stripes on the back of his jersey and shorts! 

But one of the real "nails in the coffin" for sales of that bike was its weight:  42 pounds.  It's actually not as bad as it sounds when you consider all of the equipment the Safari came with.  The Kokusai was a 31-pound bike--typical for its time--and the International shaved a pound or two off that.  To most people, though, buying a Safari meant getting the weight of a Schwinn Varsity at twice the price--even if it cost less than half of what other fully-equipped touring bikes cost.

All of those issues aside, a dedicated bike tourer would have found one other (easily remediable) flaw:  the gearing. In the 1970's, it was common to have "half step" gearing in the front to compensate for the wide gearing gaps between cogs on wide-range five-speed freewheels.  Said freewheel had gears ranging from 14 to 34 teeth--the widest range available at the time.  It was paired with chainrings of 48 and 54 teeth.  Yes, you read that right. The small chainring was 48 teeth--on a fully-loaded touring bike! 

Had that flaw been corrected, and had Nishiki shaved a bit of weight off the Safari, would it have sold better--and would Nishiki have continued making it? Could it have become an idea whose time had come?

Shifting Gears--Literally

When I first became a dedicated cyclist--around the time that the '70's North American Bike Boom was peaking--all derailleur-equipped bicycles had gear clusters (freewheels) that screwed onto the rear hub.  

Cinelli Bivalent Hub, circa 1961

That is, all of the derailleur-equipped bicycles I saw.  I'd read and heard about the Cinelli Bivalent hub, which was produced for a few years during the 1960's.  Other than that, I believed, there was only one sprocket system for derailleur-equipped bike, and your only concern was whether the hub had British, French or Italian freewheel threads. 

And, as far as I knew, the first departures--apart from the Bivalent--from such a system came around 1980, when Maillard introduced its Helicomatic system and Shimano came out with what was then called the Freehub.

Shimano 600 Freehub system, circa 1981

Shimano's system was essentially the same any of today's hub-and-cassette systems, save for those of Campagnolo, which have a different spline pattern.  The only major difference between those early Freehubs and today's Shimano and SRAM ensembles is that the on old Freehubs, which had six cogs, five cogs slid onto splines and the smallest one screwed on, acting as the lockring.  On current hubs, all of the cogs are joined as a cassette that mounts on the splines and is held in place by a separate lockring.

Helicomatic.  From a 1984 Peugeot brochure

When I first saw the Helicomatic, I actually thought it was a better idea than the Freehub.  I still do, and I think it's a better concept than any of today's hubs with cassette bodies.  The problem with the Helicomatic--as with another "revolutionary" French component of the time, the Huret Duopar derailleur--is that while it was a great concept, it wasn't well-executed.  Maillard offered lower- and higher- priced models of Helicomatic, and they suffered from the same problems:  soft helical spines (the "bayonet" mount) that often gouged or stripped, rather weak axles that frequently broke and, on the racing model, smaller-than-normal ball bearings that caused the cones and races to wear quickly and, in a few cases, "explode."

But the Bivalent, Helicomatic and Freehub were not the first systems to depart from the screw-on freewheel cluster.  Just recently, I became aware of another, which also employed its own unique rear derailleur.

In the early 1930s, Alex Shuttleworth and William Hill paptented the TriVelox system.  It had three rear cogs--which was all most derailleurs of the time could handle.  It also used a 1/8" pitch chain,  in contrast to today's 3/32" derailleur chains.  

But most improtant of all, the TriVelox derailleur--unlike those of today--shifted gears by moving the sprockets rather than the chain.  Apparently, the sprockets were fitted onto splines, much like the Helicomatic or Freehub cassettes. And the derailleur remained fixed while the freewheel block moved sideways on the hub.

Why was such a system developed?  It was a response to, as Michael Sweatman of Disraeligears says so eloquently, "a peculiarly British fixation with chainline".  British cyclists, by and large, shunned derailleurs--as they would until the 1950s--because using them meant running the chain out of line on the extreme gears (small chainring with smallest rear cog or large chainring with largest rear cog).

As Sweatman tells us, they had a point.  Roller chains are meant to run in a straight line.  Thus, while riders in Albion had an exaggerated fear of the friction incurred by running a chain out of line, they were correct in believing that chains wear out more quickly when they're run out of line, let alone bent and flexed when shifted on conventional derailleurs.

Bicyclists of that time had good reason to think about longevity:  Chains were comparatively much more expensive than they are now.  That is why people were more fastidious about keeping their chains cleaned and lubed--and why many bikes came with oil-bath chain cases, something that couldn't be used with a derailleur.

The TriVelox system did what its creators intended.  Walter Greaves rode such a system for 45,000 miles (!) in one year and used only two chains and two sets of sprockets.  In other words, his chains lasted about ten or fifteen times as long as a chain made for a current 10- or 11-cog system.

TriVelox seems to have been in production for about two decades.  It was never a mass-market item, but it had its following, particularly with tandem riders.  One reason why it didn't become more popular is that it was much heavier than conventional derailleur/freewheel/hub combinations.  Another is that the system required a very wide rear axle to accomodate the sliding freewheel system. That, of course, limited its development to three speeds because additional cogs would have required an even bigger axle.

But most important of all, by the 1950s, most dedicated cyclists were realizing that derailleur systems were reliable and practical, and would allow for more than three cogs without widening hubs or axles.

I came across a TriVelox set on eBay.  I'd be very curious to see it--and other predecessors of today's cassette-and-hub systems--up close.

 

When The Sun Was Rising On The Bike Boom

Yesterday I talked about something people younger than "a certain age" probably wouldn't have known:  Cannondale's pre-bikemaking history (1971-1982).

Now I'm going to mention something else us oldsters (some of whom ride roadsters) will remember:  a time when Japanese goods were considered inferior to everything else on the market.  Bike parts, particularly derailleurs, from the Land of the Rising Sun were starting to gain respectability right around the time the 1970s North American Bike Boom was exploding; the bikes would soon follow.

I'm giving you this capsule history because I recently acquired a new-old-stock part from that period.  Although there's nothing exceptional about it, it's interesting and, I believe, good.

I knew I'd had one of an "endangered species" when I saw the packaging:  It looked as if no one had touched it in forty years.  More to the point, it bore signs of an earlier time:

In the days before Shimano came out with its Crane derailleurs and the Dura-Ace gruppo of which it would become a part, nearly all of its parts bore the "wings" "lifting" the "333" logo.  After Dura-Ace and Titlist (the forerunner of 600 and Ultegra) came to market, only Shimano's internally-geared three-speed hubs bore that emblem.  On that basis alone, one could date this hub from 1973 or earlier.

I have tried to show the logo engraved in the hub body and what appears to be a date code:

The letters are "R" and "U".  In every explanation of Shimano's code I've seen, the first letter is the month and the second letter is the year.  The month code goes from "A" to "L", with "A" being January and "L" being December.  The year code starts with "A" in 1976, goes through "Z" (2001) and begins again with "A" in 2002.  

One site suggests that Shimano was using this sequence before 1976 or, at least, that "Y" could be 1974 and "Z", 1975.  If that is the case, the "U" on my hub might mean that it was made in 1970.  But what about the "R"?  Could there have been another code in use for the month?  

Or might those letters mean something else--or nothing at all?

Whatever the case, it's pretty reasonable, I believe, to assume this hub was made before 1973, perhaps even during the late 1960s.  Here's another piece of evidence--which you may have noticed in another photo--that, I believe, supports my hypothesis.

I

 

Before They Made Bikes: Cannondale

There are a few bike brands that even non-cyclists can name.  Here in the US, Schwinn is one of them.  Others include Raleigh, Peugeot, Motobecane and Fuji.  

Cannondale might also be included in that list.  I think they gained notice with the general public because when their bicycles were first introduced in 1983, they looked very different from the others.  While Klein may have been the first to make aluminum frames from large-diameter tubing, Cannondale made them a mass-market (relatively speaking, anyway) item.  To this day, those frames are the first thing most people associate with the name "Cannondale".

What most people, especially those younger than--ahem--a certain age, don't realize is that Cannondale was in business for more than a decade before they built their first bicycle.  Furthermore, even though the first product they ever made was bicycle-related, their early reputation was established as much on non-bike equipment as on accessories for two-wheelers.

In the late 1960's, Joe Montgomery was a self-described "grunt" on Wall Street.  The experience, he later related, taught him how businesses work.  Always an avid outdoorsman, he saw a growing enthusiasm for hiking, camping and related activities--and foresaw the North American Bike Boom.  He knew he wanted to build bikes but didn't have the necessary capital.  So, when he started Cannondale (and named it, as nearly everyone knows by now, after a Connecticut train station) in 1971, he knew he had to develop and market a product that would distinguish his new enterprise as well as help him raise the money he'd need to build bikes.

Thus was the world's first bicycle-towed trailer--the Bugger--born.  One funny thing about it was that it predated, if unwittingly, the luggage that people roll through airport lobbies all over the world.  That's because the Bugger was, in essence, a big backpack on wheels.  Since it was mounted on an angle, it transferred all of the weight carried in it to its tires and didn't add to the weight of the bicycle.  I never owned one, but had opportunities to ride with one.  While it increased the turning radius, it didn't affect other aspects of the ride nearly as much as I expected.

The original Cannondale Bugger, 1972.

Sales took off and in spite (or, perhaps, because) of the connotations of its name, it sold well in the UK.  That allowed the new company to create other products for which they would be known.  They included panniers and handlebar bags with innovative designs and sturdy construction.  

Within a couple of years, Cannondale was also making backpacks, sleeping bags, parkas, and other items for camping, hiking, snowshoeing and other outdoor sports.  LL Bean sold them through their catalogue; one was as likely to find Cannondale products in ski shops as in bike shops. 

The "Trackwalker" is on the left.  Mine was black, with tan leather and red tabs.

During that time, I used several Cannondale products, in part because the shops in which I worked (as well as American Youth Hostels, where I also worked) carried them.  For at least a decade, my "Trackwalker" backpack was my go-to bag when I was off the bike--and sometimes on it.  With its black body, tan leather bottom and red "spider" zipper tabs, it had a very distinctive look.  Also, I wore one of their parkas through a number of seasons.  They, like their bike bags (I used one of their handlebar bags and seat bags on my first few bike tours) were well-constructed and practical.  

But my favorite Cannondale product of all time (Remember, I owned and rode two of their bicycles) was the glove they made--by hand, in Pennsylvania--during the 1980's.  I don't think I've come across another sport glove--or, for that matter, any glove--made from such high-quality materials and with such good workmanship.  It was like a Brooks saddle:  stiff at first, but once broken in, a perfect fit that would last for many years.  I wore mine until the crochet backings deteriorated--a long, long time after I first started wearing the gloves.

The best glove ever made--by far!

I wish I could find a pair of them--or something as good--now.  Back then, a pair of those gloves retailed for $25-30, which, it seems,  is what a "good" pair of gloves costs now. 

 I'm guessing that Cannondale couldn't continue to make them in Pennsylvania--or anywhere in the US--without raising the price significantly.  So production of those gloves was sent overseas.  Later, that of their bike apparel and accessories and, finally, their bikes followed.  Around the time Cannondale introduced their bicycles, they stopped making and selling backpacks, parkas and other non-bike-related gear.

(If you want to learn more about what Cannondale was doing before they started building bikes, check out this site.)