Serious Mojo In The Shadow Of Power

Last week, I spotted a pair of Sun Tour shifters on eBay.  The item's location was listed as "New York, NY."  So I asked whether I could pick them up.

Turns out, the seller was even closer to where I live than I expected:  only about 4 kilometers away.  Woodside, Queens, to be exact.  And he said his "shop" was located behind a restaurant on one of the neighborhood's commercial strips.

The reason I'm not revealing the name of that restaurant, or the name of the shop, is that Damon asked me not to.  In fact, on his website, he says his "shop"--which is really more of a workshop--is in a "secret location" and that he meets customers only by appointment.

Damon is actually an engaging and friendly fellow.  The reason for his arrangement, he says, is that his shop--a garage, really--is a "passion" and he doesn't want to deal with the more mundane parts of the bike business.  (He once had a regular shop, he explained, and running it was nothing like he expected it to be.)  Also, I sensed that he wanted to deal only with customers who shared his passion for vintage bikes.

One of our common loves, as it turns out, is frames from British builders.  He showed me a Claud Butler from the '50's that he's fixing up, along with a few other frames from Claud's countrymen.  When I revealed my own love of Mercians, he knew he'd found a soulmate, at least in bicycle terms.

(Oh, and he did some of his studies for his profession--his "day job"--in Paris and, quelle coincidence, was living in the City of Light at the same time I was there. How do Francophiles become aficionados of British Frames?  Hmm...)

All of the frames in his "shop" were steel, except for one older Vitus bike.  Among his Butlers and early '80's Treks stood one of what might be the most sought-after (by collectors and enthusiasts) bike from a mass manufacturer:  Raleigh Lenton.  It was in really good shape, except for the cellulose fenders--which are almost always broken.  

I could have spent all day at that shop, and with Damon. Because he's trying not to publicize his operation too much, I didn't take photos--except for one particularly intriguing machine.

Damon equipped this Olmo city bike, which probably dates from the '50's or '60's, with Campagnolo Gran Sport equipment, except for the Weinmann centerpull brakes. (The Gran Sport brakes wouldn't have been long enough or played nice with the fenders.)  He was impressed that I've actually written posts about GS equipment and Weinmann brakes, but I was even more taken with some other features of that bike:

Those bars put those narrow "city bars" I see on hipsters' fixies to shame--both for function and style.  But perhaps the best (or at least my favorite) part is something Damon customized.

He bent it to accommodate the front derailleur.  That alone would have made me want to make a return trip to his "shop"--which is just a few blocks away from where Dick Power had his framebuilding shop and retail store.

Before I left, I noticed that he had some vintage Silca pumps that, he explained, had been stored away from sunlight which, apparently, is what makes the plastic on them brittle.  I bought one, in black, for Negrosa, the 1973 full-Campy Mercian I picked up last year.  I know that the Zefal HPX (or even the earlier HP and Competition) pumps are easier to use and sturdier, but most full-Campy bikes of the time had Silca Imperos--and Regina freewheels, which I also have, even though I know the SunTour New Winner and Winner Pro are better in almost every way.  

That trip was short but sweet, to say the least!

Campagnolo Gran Sport: Act II

Yesterday, I mentioned the Campagnolo Gran Sport and its offspring.  As I said, although the original GS derailleur ceased production in 1963, the name wasn't abandoned:  It was re-appropriated in 1975.  In a way, Campagnolo came "full circle" with the Nuovo Grand Sport rear derailleur:  It shared the geometry and overall design of the Record and its succ essors, but had a cruder finish and hexagonal rather than recessed allen bolts, while the Record, Nuovo Record and Super Records were refinements of the original Gran Sport.    The 1970's Gran Sport was situated below the Record but above Campagnolo's "budget" Valentino and Gran Turismo derailleurs, which cost more than, and didn't shift as well as, Japanese derailleurs of the time.  

Campagnolo Nuovo Gran Sport derailleur, late 1970s

Also, over the few years that followed the introduction of the original GS, Campy created a line of Gran Sport components: hubs, crankset, bottom bracket, headset, pedals and seatpost, but no brakes.  This gruppo is believed to be the first such comprehensive ensemble of professional-level equipment since Birmingham Small Arms (BSA) made the components-of-choice for Six-Day Racers as well as much of the peloton during the 1930s. (BSA also made some very well-respected bicycles.)  Soon, Campagnolo Gran Sport parts would be nearly as common among elite cyclists as BSA stuff had been.




A new gruppo was also created around the Nuovo Gran Sport.  It would include something the original Gran Sport group didn't have:  brakes.  (Interestingly, BSA made brakes to go with their other components, but Campagnolo didn't come out with their now-famous sidepulls until 1968, a year after the Nuovo Record derailleur was introduced.) The arms were all but identical to those of the Record.  However, the cable adjuster was a knurled dome and didn't have the rubber "O" ring seen on Record brakes.  More important, the quick release could only be opened or closed completely, in contrast to the infinitely-variable quick release on the Record, which could be opened part way.


One of the most interesting Nuovo Gran Sport components was the crankset, which had a three-arm spider:

Gran Sport crankset, 1970s

Later, it was replaced by a five-arm spider much like that of the Record:




The headset shared the same bearings and bearing surfaces with Record and Super Record headsets.  However, the Gran Sport, made entirely from steel, had only two wrench "flats" on the top adjustable race, while Record-level headsets had multiple sides that to fit a standard headset wrench.



Some people preferred the Gran Sport because it didn't have any names or logos on the adjustable race or lower head race. In that way, it resembled the headsets found on some old British frames like Claud Butler.

The pedals were based on the Record's quill design.  The bearings and bearing surfaces were the same. However, the NGS didn't share the Record's knurling on the outside of the cone locknut that helped to prevent dirt from working its way in.  In addition, the dust caps on the NGS were plastic (steel on the Record and alloy on the Super Record) and the cutouts on the cages were a bit smaller.  Finally, as with the rear (and front) derailleurs, the finish was cruder.  However, nobody seemed to notice any difference in functionality between the Gran Sport and Record series pedals.



Possibly the most inelegant (at least to my eye) constituent of the Nuovo Gran Sport line was the shift levers.  They functioned just like the Record levers but, like other Gran Sport components, had a less-polished finish. And the adjuster nuts, while easy enough to use, were not attractive, at least to my tastes.




In contrast, the Gran Sport front derailleur was all but indistinguishable from the Record:



Finally, here is my favorite component in the Gran Sport lineup:




These hubs were part of the Nuovo Gran Sport gruppo.  But they weren't called "Gran Sport". Instead they were known as "Nuovo Tipo", the name under which they had been made since 1965, a decade before the introduction of the Nuovo Gran Sport derailleur.  The hubs were simply incorporated into the group.


I had two sets of wheels with these hubs.  In fact, my very first set of custom wheels was built around them, with Super Champion 58 rims and Robergel "Sport" spokes.  I rode them on my first long bike tours and, after a few hundred miles, the hubs spun just as smoothly as the Record hubs I would later acquire.  

TIpos shared the same bearings, cones and axles with Record hubs of the same era.  However, the inner races on the Tipos were stamped, while those on Records were forged.  That meant that Tipos weren't as smooth out of the box as Records and needed "breaking in".  They also probably didn't last as long, but I knew cyclists (myself included) who rode plenty of miles, some of them hard, on Tipos.  

More visible differences, though, were in the logo (Tipos used the older-style "flying wheel" while Records had the "world" insignia), the oil hole clips on the Records and lack of same on the Tipos, and the knurled quick-release locknut on the Tipo vs. the nut with the D-ring on the Record.



Finally, the large-flanged version of the Record had oval cutouts in the flanges, while the Tipos had portal-style holes reminiscent of classic hubs from the 1930s to the 1950s.




Probably the best-known bike (in the US, anyway) to come equipped with Nuovo Gran Sport components was the Raleigh Competition from 1977 to 1985. (Before 1977 , the Competition came with a Huret Jubilee rear derailleur and other French components.)  The NGS gruppo was, not surprisingly, more likely to be found on Italian bikes.  I recall seeing Olmos and Cioccs outfitted with the full Nuovo Gran Sport ensemble, except for the rear derailleur, which was a Nuovo Record.  Stuyvesant Bicycle  and a few other shops sold them.  I don't know whether the shops changed the derailleurs or whether the bikes were originally spec'd that way.

Whatever the case, Nuovo Gran Sport equipment, while good and reliable, never became terribly popular in the US.  I think one reason was the crude finish of some parts, especially the rear derailleur.  For about  the same price as NGS, one could buy Shimano Dura-Ace or SunTour Superbe equipment, which were beautifully finished and offered some of the features (like the infinitely variable brake quick-release) Campagnolo included in their Record series but omitted from Gran Sport.  And SunTour derailleurs and levers shifted better than their counterparts from Campagnolo.

Campagnolo finally retired the Gran Sport name and lineup in 1985, the same year the Nuovo and Super Record series ended their runs.  The Record lines were superseded by the Record-C, while the Gran Sport's berth below the Record was taken by the Chorus and Athena gruppos.  And Campagnolo stopped making their lower-end Valentino and Gran Turismo derailleurs and developed new "mass market" component lines called Victory and Triomphe.

Campagnolo Gran Sport And The Records

The other day, I wrote about the Nivex rear derailleur.  In my post, I mentioned the derailleur that foreclosed Nivex's future: the Campagnolo Gran Sport.

The first GS derailleur looked somewhat like every racing derailleur Campagnolo would make for the next four decades.  Debuted at the 1949 Salon de Milan (That name has a nice ring, doesn't it?), a.k.a., the Milan Bicycle Show, the original Gran Sport had, in embryonic form, the dropped parallelogram we would see on all of Campy's racing derailleurs until the late 1980's.  However, that mechanism had no return spring and was operated by a "double" cable--actually, a cable that looped through the body in the same manner as it did in most French derailleurs of the time.  






No one seems to know whether anything more than a prototype of this derailleur was ever made.  However, a year later, the "double" cable was replaced with a single cable that moves the parallelogram outward or inward, depending on the direction of the shift.  If it wasn't  not the first derailleur to employ such a system, it's almost certainly the first such derailleur to be widely used by racers.  

1951 Gran Sport

 Tullio Campagnolo made various refinements to the derailleur over its manufacturing run, which ended in 1963.  It represented a great improvement in shifting ease over the rod-actuated derailleurs Campagnolo and other companies made before the Gran Sport and the plunger-actuated derailleurs made by Simplex and other companies.  The GS was also mechanically simpler:  no small consideration in races over pockmarked postwar roads and teams with limited budgets.

First generation Record, 1963

The Record, introduced in 1963, looked all but identical to the last version of the Gran Sport.  However, the pulley cage was moved slightly forward and upward in relation to the jockey pulley.  This refinement widened the range of the derailleur and improved the shifting ease somewhat. 

Campagnolo Nuovo Record

Four years after that, one of the most iconic derailleurs of all time--the Campagnolo Nuovo Record--would first see the light of day.  While it didn't offer much technical refinement over the Record, it looked far more refined, in its polished cold-forged aluminum (in contrast to the chrome-plated brass and steel of the Record and Gran Sport).  Campagnolo would make the Nuovo Record--and it would be the most common derailleur in the peloton--until 1985.  A further refinement of the Nuovo Record--the Super Record--would appear in 1974.  As popular as it was, it did not displace the Nuovo Record, with both derailleurs ending their runs at the same time.

Later version  Super Record

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Note:  I would like to acknowledge The Retrogrouch, Bicycle Quarterly, Classic Rendezvous, Disraeli Gears, Velo Base, Classic LIghtweights UK and old Campagnolo literature for the information in this post.