Before Carbon Fiber: Plastic Bicycle Components

Early in the 1970's Bike Boom, boatloads of ten-speeds from Raleigh, Peugeot, Motobecane, Dawes and other European makers came to these shores.  You may have had one of those bikes; perhaps you have one now. 

If it was made before 1975, chances are that its derailleur was made by Campagnolo, Huret or Simplex.  The latter company supplied the derailleurs for most Peugeots until the early 1980's, as well as for some models from the other bike-makers I've mentioned.  My Peugeot PX-10 came with the Simplex Criterium; the entry-level U-08 came with the company's "Prestige" mechanism.

Simplex Criteriun

In design and function, the Criterium and Prestige were the same.  The Prestige had a red-badged parallelogram while the Criterium had silver badge and cute red plugs in the pivot bolts.  Most interestingly, though, the parallelogram and knuckles on the Prestige were made entirely of Delrin plastic, while the Criterium's parallelogram had a steel reinforcement.

Simplex Prstige

Because of the materials used, Simplex derailleurs were often perceived to be "cheap" or of low-quality.  Actually, given the standards of what was available at the time, they shifted reasonably well--not as well as anything SunTour made, but at least as well as most of Campagnolo's offerings.  The chief objection to those plastic Simplex derailleurs was, aside from aesthetics, their durability.  When I worked in bike shops, I saw many on which the plastic had worn at the pivots and joints, leaving them with sloppy shifting.  In all fairness, though, I must admit that I didn't see as many broken ones as I expected, and I think stories of Prestiges or even Criteriums that exploded under normal pedaling pressure were exaggerated.

From the time the first all-plastic (except for the cage plates and bolts) Simplex derailleurs were introduced in 1962, increasing amounts of metal were added to the higher-level models.  Lucien Juy probably figured that racers and tourists rode more miles and under worse conditions than recreational riders did, so more durable derailleurs were necessary for them.  (While a Prestige would wrap up the amount of chain necessary for a triple crankset, it wasn't torsionally rigid enough to last very long in such use.)  By 1975, he had come full-circle:  His "Super LJ" was constructed entirely of alloy and intended to compete with the Campagnolo Nuovo Record, Huret Jubilee, SunTour Cyclone and other top derailleurs of the time.

(This state of affairs may have made Simplex the only component manufacturer whose professional-level wares were heavier than its entry-level stuff, or anything in between!)

Before carbon-fiber frames gained widespread popularity, Simplex derailleurs were among the few components to be made of plastic.  Another is one that, unless you were riding during the '80's, or have a bike from that period, might surprise you.

Stronglight cranks and headsets came on many of the same bikes that included Simplex derailleurs.  I never had any problems with the ones that came with my PX-10E; in fact, I have a soft spot for the Stronglight "93" crankset.  (The only reason, I believe, it's not popular today is its proprietary bolt circle of 122mm.)  The headset was ugly but at least it was smooth-running, sturdy and didn't require any special tools.

Stronglight A-9

Later, Stronglight made what some regard to be the best headset, ever: the A9. (The "Delta" is the A-9 with more seals and more smoothly curved cups.) I had one on my Mondonico Criterium; it was as well-made as anything I've ridden.  Many 30-year-old A9s are still in use today and people pay premium prices for them on eBay.  It's the headset I'd still be using if it weren't for Chris King.

Stronglight B-10

Although it was the lightest headset available at the time (and lighter than most headsets available today), someone though a lighter version was necessary.  So was born the B10, which shared the A9's tapered roller bearings but replaced the alloy cups with ones made out of--you guessed it--Delrin.

(The B10 sometimes bore the name of Tour de France champion Bernard Hinault on its locknut.)

I never used a B10 myself, and I never installed one. However, it came on some of Trek's touring machines during the 1980s, as well as other bikes.  Not surprisingly, they ran as smoothly as the A9s--at least for a while.  Accounts vary on how long.  But because roller bearing headsets are tightened with more force than ball-bearing headsets, owing to the tolerances of the roller bearings, tightening compresses the plastic cups more than it does to alloy ones.  From my limited experiences of working on B10s, I found they were more difficult to adjust so that they turned smoothly without play. 

I heard a few accounts of cups that broke.  If they were true, I wonder how many were the result of failure during a ride or of over-tightening. Or both.

B10s, apparently, were not in production for very long.  On the other hand, Simplex made plastic derailleurs for more than two decades.  That could be the reason why we see more extant Simplexes than B10s.  That, and the fact that during the Boom, many people bought ten-speed bikes, rode them once or twice and relegated them to basements and garages for decades afterward.  Then again, the same could be said for some of the Treks that came with plastic headsets:  People bought them for tours they planned but never did, or they actually did their planned tours and, afterward, their lives took them away from cycling.  Or thet simply found they didn't like bicycle touring.

In any event, it seems that--unless you count carbon bikes and parts as plastic--there have been few, if any, attempts to render major bicycle parts in the material during the past three decades or so.  Could it be that carbon bikes are really a disincentive for parts manufacturers to make plastic components and accessories to be used on non-carbon bikes?  Or is it--as rumors have it--that plastic derailleurs, headsets and other parts really disintegrate under you as you ride, or break at the worst possible moment?

Paint...I Mean, Anodize...It Black

To many bicycle enthusiasts, “classic” components come in a spectrum of colors ranging from silver mist to gleaming chrome.  Some purists—or pedants who fancy themselves as such—believe that all components worth using are polished, preferably to a mirror finish.  Cranksets like the Stronglight 93, 63 and 49, Specialites TA Pro Vis (a.k.a. Cyclotouriste) or Nervar Star are among the preferred components of those with such aesthetic preferences.  So do Maxicar hubs, Huret Jubilee derailleurs and old-style 3TTT bars and stems.  

Stronglight 93 crankset in its natural habitat:  on a Peugeot PX-10.

 They’re all lovely pieces and perfectly valid on modern as well as classic bikes.  And, oh, yes, Campagnolo Gran Sport and Record stuff made until 1985 or so.  They had a more buffed finish but took on a nice sheen that looked great on just about any bike, especially a silver Cinelli.

Huret Jubilee in its natural habitat:  a Rene Herse

 

But not all components made before the lava field of carbon fiber oozed across, and blanketed, the cycling landscape looked like they were chromed or polished so that you could use them for shaving or putting on your makeup.  A couple of years before I started taking rides of more than a few miles—a year or two after the ‘70’s Bike Boom ended—a cult of sorts developed around black anodized parts.  

Original Campagnolo Super Record rear derailleur, circa 1974

It seems to have started when, in the middle of the decade, Campagnolo introduced its Super Record line.  It was identical to the Record line (which included the Nuovo Record rear derailleur) but included titanium bolts and bottom bracket and pedal axles.  And, to distinguish it visually from the Record line, the knuckles of the rear derailleur were anodized black.  So were the pedal cages and chainrings.  

(The hubs and brakes were the same as those in the Record line.  The brake levers had drilled-out handles and, ironically, weighed two grams (!) more than the non-drilled levers.  Apparently, the handles were made of thicker metal to compensate for the drilling.)

Sugino Mighty crankset, circa 1975

Maillard 700 pedals.  Don't you just love rhe red dust caps?

Once Campagnolo introduced its Super Record components, other companies got onto the black-anodized bandwagon.  Stronglight, Shimano, Sugino and other chainrings were available in noir versions.  Lyotard, Maillard, Mikashima (MKS) and Kyokuto (KKT)—the leading pedal makers, along with Campagnolo, at that time—offered black-caged and all-black versions of their products.  And, once 3TTT and Cinelli started selling black handlebars and stems, Phillipe and Pivo of France as well as Nitto and Sakae Ringyo of Japan followed suit.

SunTour Cyclone rear derailleur, circa 1975

SunTour and Shimano, naturally, offered several models of their derailleurs with black knuckles, like Campagnolo, or all-black versions.  I think the SunTour Cyclone silver rear derailleur with black accents is the prettiest shifting mechanism, besides the Huret Jubilee, ever made.  

Shimano Dura Ace hub, circa 1976

And Shimano went as far as to offer all-black versions of its Dura Ace components.  I think their hubs, with bright silver oil hole covers and axle nuts, looked particularly nice.  Their silver crankset with black rings was also nice.

Original Jim Blackburn rack on a Dawes Galaxy:  verrry '70's!

When those black components—and Jim Blackburn racks and water bottle cages—found their way to the market, I—like most novitiate cyclists of the time—had never seen anything like them before.  But a very few longtime riders—like Fred DeLong, the long-serving technical editor of Bicycling! Magazine—had seen an earlier fad for black anodized components in the years before World War II.  DeLong mentioned it in one of his columns.  And he—or some other bicycle writer of the time—mentioned a still-earlier time, around the turn from the 19^th to the 20^th Century, when black parts were all the rage.

The mid-70s mini-craze for black parts lasted a few years.  Then, most component makers quietly dropped them.  About a decade later, black chainrings and, later, other parts, started to appear on mountain bikes.  Road bikes reverted to the polished- (or buffed-) silver look in parts.  That wasn’t all bad, especially if said components were from SunTour’s Superbe Pro line.

SunTour Superbe Pro track hub

That aesthetic—and SunTour itself—disappeared around the time carbon-fiber bikes and parts reached the mass market.   The past few years, though, have seen something of a resurgence of shiny silver stuff as cyclists (mainly non-racers) are discovering (or re-discovering) the versatility, durability, beauty and ride quality of classic steel frames, or modern frames inspired by them. 

Nice Old Cranks

Some of my favorite vintage components are Stronglight cranksets.

You might thing I'm being sentimental about the days when I was young, carefree and riding my PX-10.  Well, there are some things I miss about those days, though I have no wish to repeat them.  But more to the point, I have good memories of the Stronglight 93 crankset that came with that bike because it really was very nice.

I loved the shape and mirror polish of it.  Even more important, though, was its practicality:  Chainrings from 37 to 58 teeth were available for it. In a way, it was a precursor to today's "compact" road double cranksets.  So, they were commonly ridden, not only by racers, but by tourists with relatively light loads or who simply didn't want to deal with the finicky shifting and other issues that came with triple cranksets.

What was probably an even nicer--and, to my eye, even prettier--crankset was the "99" model.

 


It wasn't readily found here in the US, and not many bikes came equipped with it.  But it offered an even wider range of chainrings than the 93:  from 28 to 54 teeth.  In the late '70's and early '80's, six was the maximum number of freewheel cogs; seven would be introduced in the middle of the '80's.  That meant the steps between cogs were wider than on today's 8, 9, 10, 11 or 13-cog cassettes.  Consequently, most in-the-know touring cyclists rode with a "half-step plus granny" chainring setup.  That meant, in brief, a relatively small gap between the two larger chainrings and using the smallest available chainring for the "granny" gear.

A common "half-step plus granny" setup included chainrings of 28, 45 and 50 teeth.  The Stronglight "99" was ideally suited for it.  It had a larger bolt circle (86BCD) than the company's "49" model. the Specialites TA Cyclotouriste or the Nervar touring cranksets, all of which used a 50.4 BCD.  Smaller bolt circles mean, at least in theory, more chainring flex.  The 49, Cyclotouriste and Nervar crankset compensated with an extra ring of bolts to hold the two outer chainrings together.  On the other hand, the "99" had only one set of five bolts holding the chainrings onto the crank.

No one seemed to notice any undue flexing on the "99"--or a near-copy of it made by Sakae Ringyo (SR) in Japan.  The SR model was, functionally, the same and a good deal less expensive.  But the Stronglight cranks seemed to be of higher quality and were more beautiful.

So what happened to the "93" and "99"?  Well, the former crankset became the "105" and "106"--the same cranset with an anodised finish and "drillium" chainrings.  There was also a "drillium" version of the "99".  But the real reason why we don't see more modern versions of those cranks is that they had proprietary bolt circles:  122 mm for the "93" and, as I mentioned, 86 mm for the "99".  In contrast, Campagnolo racing cranks, and their clones, had a 144 mm diameter, while Dura-Ace had the now-ubiquitous 130 mm.  Meanwhile, Sugino's touring cranksets came with the now-familiar 110 mm for the outer two chainrings and 74 mm for the "granny" gear.

That means replacement chainrings for the "93" and "99" can be found only on eBay and at swap meets.  The good news is those chainrings tended to be long-wearing, more so than TA's rings. 

My First "Real" Bike: Peugeot PX-10

The other day, I wrote about my Peugeot U0-8, which became my first "fixie."  Now I'm going to write about another Peugeot I owned, which I didn't alter nearly as drastically.

When I bought my Schwinn Continental, I saw a Peugeot PX-10 in the shop.  I looked at its price tag:  $250 seemed like sheer insanity for a bike to someone who'd saved the $96 cost of the Schwinn from a year of delivering newspapers in the hinterlands of New Jersey.

Somehow, though, I knew I was going to end up with that bike.  As I wheeled my Continental out of the showroom of Michael's Bicycle Company (located next to a drive-in theater on Route 35 in Hazlet, NJ),  I could feel the bike bug embedding its tentacles into my shins.

Well, about three years later, I got a PX-10 for $250--used.  And it was three years older than the one I saw in the showroom.

It seems that almost everyone who came of age during the '70's Bike Boom rode a PX-10 at some point or another.  For many of us, it was our first real racing bike:  Bernard Thevenet won the 1975 and 1977 Tours de France on PX-10s that differed from the ones we bought only in that the stems and handlebars were changed to fit his physique.

Also, the great Eddy Merckx began his professional career astride a PX-10 for the BP-Peugeot team in the mid-1960's.

Although $250 seemed like a lot of money for a bike in 1972 (and was probably even more so in 1969, when the PX-10 I bought was built), it was actually quite a good value.  First of all, the frame was built from Reynolds 531 tubing with Nervex lugs.  While the level of finesse in the lugwork and paint wasn't up to what one would find on a bike from a French constructeur or a classic British builder, it was nothing to be ashamed of.   

The chainstays, clearances and fork rake were all considerably longer than what would be found on later racing bikes.  However, racing bikes at that time had to be more versatile, as roads, particularly in small towns and rural areas of Europe, were rougher:  Some still hadn't been repaired after the bombings and shellings of World War II.  Also, racers and trainers at the time believed that a rider should spend as much time as possible on the bike he plans to use in upcoming races.  They also believed that, at least for road racing, outdoor training was superior to indoor, so the bikes were ridden all year long.  They--yes, even Merckx himself--rode with fenders and wider tires during the winter.

The longer geometry and rather thin stays meant that while the frame gave a lively ride, it could be "whippy," especially for a heavy rider, in the rear.  The flip-side of that, of course, was that the PX-10 gave a stable and comfortable ride in a variety of conditions.  This is one reason why many PX-10s were re-purposed as light touring bikes, or even outfitted (as Sheldon Brown's was) with an internally-geared hub and used for commuting.

The components that came with the bike were not top-shelf, but were at least good for their time.  The best of them, aside from the Brooks Professional saddle (Yes, it was original equipment on mine, though some PX-10s came with Ideale 90 saddles.) was probably the Stronglight 93 (63 on some earlier models) crankset.  It was beautifully polished and could be outfitted with chainrings from 37 to 57 teeth.  Mine came with 45 and 52, like most PX-10s of the era.  The 93 was a light, stiff crankset:  When I later got a Campagnolo Record for another bike, I couldn't detect any difference in rigidity.  The only problem with the 93 or 63 was that it had a proprietary bolt circle diameter that wasn't compatible with Campagnolo or other high-end cranksets of the time. These days, if you need to replace a chainring on your 93 or 63, you have to go to a swap meet--or eBay.

The wheels were also of very good quality:  Normandy Luxe Competition hubs with Mavic tubular rims (Some PX-10s came with Super Champion tubulars, which were equal in quality.) laced with Robergel spokes, the best available at the time.  Of course, I would build another set of wheels--clinchers--on which I would do the majority of my riding.



I rode many happy hours and kilometers (Hey, it was a French bike!) on my PX-10.  Like many other cyclists, I "graduated" to a more modern racing bike, and a touring bike and sold the PX-10.  Still, it holds a special place in my cycling life as my first high-performance bike.