Mercian Revives An English Tradition--For Now

When I first became a dedicated cyclist--around the tail end of the '70's Bike Boom--high-quality, performance-oriented bikes were marketed in two categories:  racing and touring.  Although there were elite touring bikes available, such as Schwinn's touring Paramount and machines from custom builders, racing bikes were seen as the more advanced and higher-quality machines.

By 1987 or thereabouts, major bike manufacturers had ceased making bikes designed for loaded, or even light, touring. 

For one thing, multiday bike touring was no longer as popular as it had been in the wake of the Bikecentennial.  Many people who bought touring bikes used them for once-in-a-lifetime treks, whether cross-continental tours like the Bikecentennial or an after-college ramble through Europe--or just a crossing of the nearest county or state line.  Then, "life intervened" or they simply lost their incentive to do another tour, and their bikes hung in rafters or barns, or collected dust in basements.  Thus, by the mid-'80's, there was little demand for new touring bikes.

For another, by that time, mountain bikes had come "of age", as it were.  The "racing/touring" dichotomy of the Bike Boom era was thus replaced by a "road/mountain" binary that lasted through most of the rest of the 20th Century.  The "hybrid" bicycle was supposed to be a cross between road and mountain bikes, but, as one wag noted, it had "the speed of a mountain bike and the comfort of a road bike".

During the race/tour and road/mountain eras of cycling, new cyclists came into the fold without knowing of other genres of bicycles that enjoyed popularity--and fulfilled clear purposes--throughout the history of cycling.  For example, most of us didn't know about the randonneuses made by constructeurs like Rene Herse and Alex Singer, let alone what distinguished them from fully-loaded touring bikes.  We also didn't know about cyclo-cross bikes or riding--and, when most of us did learn, the riding was introduced to us as if it were some kind of proto- or paleo- mountain biking.

And, until a few years ago, most of us hadn't heard of "path racers".  It's a British term for bikes that can be ridden on smooth dirt pathways as well as on roads. They are said to be inspired by fin de siècle French track bikes, which would account for the fact that they're usually ridden with turned-over North Road-style and other "riser" bars to give an aerodynamic position.

Even in England, a whole generation of cyclists came of age without knowing about these bikes, as their peers and France were forgetting about classic randonneuses.  Fortunately, Alex Singer (Ernst Csuka) lived long enough to see a revival in a demand for such bikes, and Rene Berthoud as well as builders in other countries are making such bikes.  Now it seems that the path racer is enjoying a revival in England.  Pashley, the country's last large-scale bike manufacturer, has been making the Guv'nor--a stylized version of such bikes--for several years.  Now one of Britain's best-known traditional bike builders is making a limited-path racer:

As of now, Mercian plans to produce only ten Path Racers. Given the new surge in popularity of such bikes, I wonder whether the folks in Derby might be persuaded to make more. 

"The First Brakes That Worked"

If you have a Peugeot--or almost any other French bike (Motobecane being one of the notable exceptions) made before the late 1970's, you are riding them.

No, I'm not referring to those plastic Simplex derailleurs or the longer-lasting but worse-shifting Huret models.  Unless you acquired a bike that was never ridden, you've probably had to replace your shifters by now.  Even If you didn't need to, you might have.

On the other hand, there's a good chance you're still riding your Mafac "Racer" brakes.  You might have replaced the pads and cables--actually, you should have because even if the bike wasn't ridden, the cables were probably corroded and the pads hardened.  If you did, and your brakes are adjusted, they work as well as--or even better than--most brakes available today.

I am mentioning them because, for about two decades, they achieved a distinction very few other bike parts held:  They were used on bikes at all price and quality levels, from the machines ridden by Tour de France winners to the most utilitarian city and town bikes.  Some time in the mid-1970's, Mafac came out with the "Competition", which was really the same brake with a shorter reach.  Later, it was cleaned up and polished (and still later offered with gold anodizing).  A longer version of the Competition --i.e., one with the same reach as the Racer--was also marketed.

 

The one other difference between the "Racer" and "Competition" was the straddle cable:  The one on the Competition had double ball ends, while the Racer used what was essentially a shorter link of derailleur cable (with the barrel-shaped end used on Campagnolo and Simplex shifters) bolted into hex-shaped ends.

While some may see these brakes as anachronisms, they have an important place in cycling history. Some cycling historians say they were "the first brakes that actually worked".  That is almost not hyperbole:  There seemed to be a mentality among brake-makers (at least those that made brakes for road bikes) that was expressed by a Campagnolo representative at a training session:  The purpose of the brake is not to stop, but to decelerate.  Some would argue that notion gave the brakes of the time too much credit.

(When I first got serious about cycling, there was a joke that the Universal 68 side-pull--commonly supplied on bikes that were otherwise all-Campagnolo--was a "courtesy" brake.)

One reason for Mafac's superior power was the way the brake block attached to the arm:  through an eyebolt.  This allowed a far greater range of adjustability along the vertical and horizontal planes.  This was particularly important with rims like the Constrictor Asp, which did not have flat parallel sides.

(The Asp seems almost like an embryonic version of today's V-shaped "aero" rims!)

Another advantage offered by the "Racer" brakes was that the length of the straddle cable could be adjusted to optimize the mechanical advantage of the brake.  This allowed the brakes to work well with a variety of different levers, as well as with the pads set all the way up or all the way down--or anywhere in between--on the brake arm.

Now, you might be thinking that the first working center pull--and the one on which others were based, at least in part--is not so important because sidepulls have advanced so much, and so Mafac has been relegated to la poubelle de l'histoire.  Well, even though Mafac hasn't been in business for about three decades, their place in cycling history is sure because of the very first product they made, about seven years before the "Racer" was introduced.

Their cantilever brake, introduced in 1946, remained in production throughout the company's history (about four decades).  It's not the first of its type.  But, compared to the ones that had been made before, it was easy to set up and use, and was more powerful.  For as long as Mafac made them, nearly every lightweight tandem was equipped with them.  So were many high-quality bikes made for fully-loaded touring, and most cyclo-cross racers.  For the latter, cyclists often brazed the necessary posts to old racing frames to accommodate the cantilevers which, in addition to offering superior stopping power, were not as easily clogged by the mud that is an essential element of any cyclo-cross race.

The early mountain bikes also used Mafac cantis.  When Dia-Compe and Shimano made  cantilever brakes that appeared on off-the-shelf touring bikes (and second-generation mountain bikes) sold in the US, their designs were basically adaptations and refinements of Mafac's.  Weinmann also more-or-less copied Mafac cantis and, apparently, bought Mafac's tooling and continued making cantis, in steel as well as alloy, until their own demise in the 1990's.

Many of us still use cantis today.  Those of you who use V-brakes also have to thank Mafac, because Vees were developed from cantis.  And even those of us who use dual-pivot sidepulls owe a debt of gratitude to Manufacture Auvergnoise de Freins et Accessories pour Cycle for developing the centerpull that helped to make it possible!

For me, it's interesting to recall that Frank Chrinko, the proprietor of Highland Park (NJ) Cyclery when I was working there, would not ride any brakes but Mafac centerpulls.  In fact, he put a set of Competitions, along with a mixture of Campagnolo and top-shelf French and Japanese parts, on a frame that was built custom for him.