French BMX

 In 2015, I wrote a post about Lyotard pedals.  The French manufacturer was best known for its Models 460–the alloy “rattrap” model popular with cyclo-cross riders and bike tourists and commuters—and the 23, a.k.a., Berthet, a platform pedal that inspired the MKS and White Industries Urban Platform pedals.  Many ‘70’s Bike Boom-era machines were equipped with other models like the 45 (an alloy quill pedal) and the 136R, which was more or less a steel version of the 460 and sometimes had built-in reflectors.

Nowhere in the brochures I could find—or in articles like the one on the Classic Lightweights website—did I find a reference to this:

I am guessing that like Lyotard’s clipless pedal, it wasn’t made for very long. 

Both the BMX and clipless models, as good as they may have been, seem to have been “last gasp” efforts to keep the company, which seems to have ceased trading in the late-1980s, afloat. Lyotard’s sales of its less-expensive pedals (like the steel ones I mentioned) tanked, even as original equipment to manufacturers, when cheaper imports became available. Then the market for its higher-end pedals (and those from other companies) all but disappeared once Look and Time made easy-to-use clipless pedals available around 1985.

That year was also around the peak of BMX’s popularity—and when the cycling world was starting to realize that mountain bikes weren’t “just a fad.” While Japanese companies made many of the early BMX- and mountain-bike-specific parts, and Campagnolo even offered full gruppos for a couple of years, French bike and component manufacturers were slow to enter the mountain bike world and hardly touched BMX at all.

So, it’s hard not to wonder (for me, anyway) whether Lyotard would still be with us—and, in fact, be the presence it once was—had they started to make pedals like the ones in the photos—and clipless pedals—sooner.

"Check" Out This SunTour Derailleur

When I first became a dedicated cyclist--more than four decades (!) ago--a common perception among cyclists was that "if it's good, it's from Europe".  Or, at least, it was built (as the Schwinn Paramount was) from European equipment such as Reynolds 531 tubing and Campagnolo components.

As I became more involved in cycling, that belief started to change, at first with derailleurs.  For many of us, one of our first revelations was shifting the SunTour or Shimano derailleur on someone's Fuji or Nishiki or even Vista. (Yes, a bike that was a cheap imitation of the Schwinn Varsity had a derailleur that shifted better than the ones on bikes costing five times as much!)  When we wore out or broke our Simplex Prestige, Huret Allvit or Campagnolo Valentino derailleurs, we replaced them with a Shimano or, more frequently, a SunTour model.  Sometimes we didn't wait:  We changed our derailleurs as quickly as we could.

From the time I outfitted my Schwinn Continental with a SunTour GT, I rode a number of different SunTour, and a few Shimano, derailleurs on my bikes.   And, because I worked in bike shops, I felt as if I had seen every model SunTour produced through the 1970s and '80s.  It seemed that the only cyclists who wouldn't ride Japanese derailleurs were those few who remained unconvinced of their superiority, or were simply snobs.  (The most expensive SunTour derailleurs typically sold for about as much as the least expensive Campagnolo models or mid-range offerings from other European makers--and shifted better.) The rest of us rode happily with our SunTour, and sometimes Shimano, derailleurs--sometimes on otherwise all-European bikes.

I used the iconic, successful SunTour derailleurs such as the Cyclone (first version and MK II), the V and Vx series and  the almost-otherworldly Superbe Pro. I also  saw the commercial and technical failures like the Superbe Tech L (the derailleur that started SunTour's downfall) and the ones which were well-designed and -made, but came along at the wrong time, like the S-1 (S100).   And I installed and adjusted any number of derailleurs like those of the AR series, which came on many bicycles during the 1980s.

I really thought I had seen them all--yes, including the "Love", "Hero" and "Chroma GX".  Today, however, I came across a SunTour derailleur I've never before seen.  

A seller in Poland listed it on eBay.  It could mean that the "Checker" was sold only in Europe or other markets.  Or, perhaps, that it was so short-lived that only a few found their way into other countries.  

At first glance, it looks rather like the SunTour AR II of the early 1980s.  At least, it has a similar main parallelogram and knuckles, though the Checker's body is closer to the mounting bolt than the AR's.  Also, it has a cable mounting outside the parallelogram, instead of the inside-the-parallelogram mounting of the AR (which I never liked, apart from its looks).  And the finish looks similar.

I am guessing, though, that the Checker--for which I couldn't find any information--was made later than the AR series because the Checker is made to be used with SunTour's indexed gearing systems, which weren't yet made at the time the ARII was produced.

With a name like "checker", though, I have to wonder what its intended purpose was.  A retro pedi-cab, perhaps?  A Peugeot?  Or maybe it was intended to rhyme with the name of another derailleur.  That would make for quite the slogan:  Checker The Pecker!