Without Cotters, But Not Cotterless?

The French firm Specialites TA is probably best-known for its Pro Vis 5 crankset, often called the "Cyclotouriste" (though TA itself never used that name). Even if you've never ridden one, you've almost surely seen it:

It may well be the most versatile crank ever made:  The outer chainring, which bolts on to the inner bolt circle (the one closest to the center of the crank), were available in  sizes from 40 to 64 teeth.  The middle and inner rings, which bolted to the outer ring, were available in sizes from 26 to 50.  You could bolt one or two rings to the outer ring--or ride just the outer ring as a single.  So it may well be the only crankset that ever was truly designed to be used as a single, double or triple.  (On Vera, my Mercian mixte, I use a Shimano Deore MT-60 triple crank by substituting a BBG bashguard for the outer chainring.)  

Also, it may be the only crank that spawned as many imitations as the classic Campagnolo Record:  Sugino made a crankset that looked like a TA with a satin rather than a polished finish, and an early Shimano Deore crankset had the same bolt pattern, if a different look--as did the Stronglight 49D, the crank I'd probably choose if I wanted one with the 50.4 mm bolt circle and the option of single, double or triple.

Anyway, from the time it was introduced in 1963, the TA Pro 5 Vis became the crankset most commonly used on custom and other high-end touring bikes, particularly tandems, for about a quarter of a century.  Even early mountain bikes sported these cranks because they offered such a wide range of gearing--and, in spite of their appearance, were actually all but unbreakable.

Before Specialites TA introduced the Pro 5 Vis (five-bolt professional), the company produced chainrings used on cranks by other manufacturers.  Founder Georges Navet--who started out with ill-fated front-wheel drive experiments (hence the name:  TA stands for traction avant) wanted to produce a crankset to rival the best ones made by Campagnolo and Stronglight.  

Although Stronglight had been making cotterless cranks--fitted to the familiar square-taper  bottom bracket axle, which they originated--since the 1930s, some were still skeptical about the design.  Track racers were still using cottered cranks into the 1960s and some tourists still feared being stranded somewhere because the local garage or machine shop didn't have the right tools.  Other cyclists simply didn't want to change.

So, Monsieur Navet came up with a crankset that has the same arm and chainring bolt pattern we see on the Pro 5 Vis.  Unlike the Pro 5 Vis, this crankset--called the Criterium--was not cotterless.  So, in following the logic of cycle componentry from that time, you might say it was a "cottered" crank.  And you would be right--sort of.

If you didn't look closely, you might mistake them for cotterless cranks--which they are, sort of.

Specialites TA Criterium cranks with Spence Wolf-modified Campagnolo Nuovo Record rear derailleur, 1969.  From Velo Vecchio.

OK, you ask...What are they?  Well, the cranks were held to the axle by a bolt with an allen key head on one end, and a nut that threaded on to the other end.  That made the "cotters"--and the cranks easier to remove than those of traditional cottered cranks, and didn't require a special extractor, as cotterless cranks require.

An engineer once told me that the bolt holding the Criterium crank to its axle is technically not a "cotter", but rather a "pinch bolt."  The reason, he said, is that the traditional cotter has a wedge cut-out that is force-fit (usually by hammering) onto an axle with a flat spot.  The force--or stress, if you will--is what holds the crank to the axle.  On the other hand, the bolt in the Competition bore no such stress, and it merely holds the arm in place on the nearly pear-shaped axle end. 

The "not-cottered-but-not-cotterless" design had its advantages, in addition to not requiring special tools.  For one, the bolts were less prone to breaking or stripping than traditional cotter pins.  For another, it allowed 4mm of lateral movement in either direction on the axle.  That allowed the crank to be positioned for the best possible chainline.


One further advantage was that the design allowed the cranks to be made from aluminum.  A few companies made aluminum cottered cranks, but nearly all of them broke outright or ended up so gouged that the cotter pins could no longer hold them on to the bottom bracket axle.  But, because the Criterium's pinch bolt did not need hammer-blow forces to attach them, and because the shape of the axle and the way the bolts fitted into the crank provided an inherently more secure attachment, there was little to no danger of breaking or gouging the cranks.

What that meant was that the Criterium was, at the time it was introduced, the lightest crankset on the market.  It weighed even less than the alloy cranksets from Stronglight and Campagnolo because the Criterium's design allowed it to be made with skinny arms, like cottered cranks, and thinner around the axle interface.  it almost goes without saying that the Criterium was lighter, by far, than any other crankset because most--besides the aluminum cotterless sets made by Campy, Stronglight and a few other companies--were made of steel.

Cinelli Super Corsa with the drivetrain shown in the above photograph.  Also from Velo Vecchio.

The Criteriums were, like most Specialites TA products, meticulously made and beautifully finished.  Spence Wolf, the owner of Cupertino Bike Shop (one of the first in the US to devote itself to high-end bikes), equipped a few of the Cinellis and some of the Alex Singer bikes he sold with these cranks when the customer wanted wide-range gearing.  He would pair the Criteriums with a Campagnolo Record rear derailleur he modified with a long pulley cage he made for it.

But Specialites TA didn't make Criteriums for very long.  They introduced the Pro 5 Vis only a couple of years after the Criterium and, by that time, most dedicated, high-mileage cyclists--even track racers and tourists venturing into remote areas--were convinced that cotterless cranks were indeed a superior design.  To use a cliche, the rest is history.

Note:  I have seen only one of these cranks in person, on a bike I tuned up when I was working at the Highland Park Cyclery.  The bike had no markings on it, but the customer said it was "built in France".  I don't think it was a constructeur bike, but it looked fairly high-end.

You're Definitely Not Square If You Use This Cage!

If you were riding before the 1990s, chances are that you used a water bottle cage that looked something like this:

You might still be carrying your libations in such a cage.  There's no reason why you shouldn't.  That you and other cyclists are still riding with such cages is a testimony to their design.

If you have been riding with such a cage for so long, you probably know its design was based on this:

Specialites TA Ref 215

Made by Specialites TA of France, it holds a distinction very few bicycle accessories--and only a few components--can claim:  It was the choice of racers, tourists, "rough stuff" and recreational riders alike.  Whether you pedaled your Cinelli in the peloton, your Herse over the hills or your Mercian through the moors, you used the TA Ref. 215 cage--or, later, the alloy 417. (The 215 was made from chromed steel.)  

Ref. 213

For a time, TA's Ref. 213 cage was also popular until handlebar-mounted cages fell out of favor.  And, in the 1970s, the single-clamp 216 became popular with cyclists whose frames didn't include brazed-on bosses for bottle cages.

Ref 216

I thought I knew the Specialties TA line well.  (After all, when you get to be my age, and cycle for as long as I've been riding, there are times when you think you've seen it all!)  But, in hunting for small parts and accessories for the Trek I'm building, I came across this:

Ref. 218

I have to admit that I have never seen one in person.  I tried to find more information about it, but all I could find was a listing on the Blackbird website.

The eBay listing describes the cage--Ref 218-- as having "an unusual rectangular shape."  Apparently, it was made to fit the Ref. 220 and 222 "randonneur" water bottles, which look like old-fashioned milk bottles rendered in blue anodized aluminum rather than glass. 



Ref. 222 (1 liter; Ref 220 was the .75 liter version)

Someone--Fred "Fritz" Kuhn of Kopp's Cycles, I believe--told me that TA stopped making aluminum bottles because they would oxidize on the inside and poison their users.  I wonder, though, what it was like to use bottles in that shape.  How easy or difficult were they to pull out, or push back in, the cage?

The seller says that modern Fiji water bottles fit into those cages nicely.  I'll take his/her word, though I generally don't buy Fiji, or any other water transported from the ends of the Earth.   I feel certain, however, that the 218 is bomb-proof, as all of the other TA cages were!

Traction, Up Front

 

Specialites TA is known for making high-quality cranks, chainrings, bottle cages and other bike parts and accessories.

Most people refer to the company simply as "TA," without any notion as to what it signifies.*  It never would occur to most people that "TA" is an acronym for "Traction Avant", or front drive.

Specialites TA  founder Georges Navet was, like Tullio Campagnolo, a craftsman with an imagination--what we might call a "tinkerer."  Navet, a joiner/carpenter, was fascinated by a then-new Citroen innovation:  the front-wheel drive automobile.  Why can't we have a bicycle like that?, he wondered.  

Now, if you want to be technical (pun intended), front wheel drive bicycles were not new:  Before the invention of the chain-and-sprocket drive, bicycles were propelled by crams and pedals attached to the front wheel.  That is why front wheels of 1880s high-wheel (“penny farthing”) bikes were usually much larger than rear ones.  Navet, however, wanted to create a front-wheel drive bike on which the gear didn't depend on the size of the wheel.

Sadly for him, none of his traction avant experiments worked.  But in the meantime, derailleurs gained popularity and were finally approved for use in competition.  The real potential, he saw, was in cranksets with multiple chainrings--in aluminum alloy, for light weight--in a wide range of sizes.  A triple crankset greatly expanded the gear range offered by freewheels of the time (just after WWII), which had three or four sprockets ranging in size from 14 to 24 teeth.

(Now you know why those old derailleurs from Campagnolo, Huret and Simplex could wrap up yards and yards, or meters and meters, of chain even if they couldn't handle more than a 24  or 26 tooth rear sprocket:  They were designed to accommodate the gearing available at the time.)

So, in a sense, even though he couldn't realize his vision of a front wheel drive bicycle, Georges Navet achieved another kind of traction avant with his cranksets and chainrings.

*--When I was growing up in Brooklyn, some of the subway cars bore TA logos, for Transit Authority. In the academic world, a “TA” is a teaching assistant:  usually, a grad student who does the work senior tenured profs don’t want to do.  To this day, I associate TA with trains and schools as well as bikes!

With Or Without Cage

Unless you’re a purist who keeps your fixed gear bike NJS-compliant or someone who doesn’t ride much beyond your neighborhood, you use some sort of hydration system. 

Some of you use “Camel Back” type backpacks that hold bladders.  I did when I was doing a lot of mountain biking, although I’ve never really liked carrying anything on my back when I ride. But now I, like most of you, use a bottle-and-cage system.  For all of the diversity of cage materials and designs, most bottles marketed for use on bicycles fit on most cages.  That means you can buy a cage from someone who makes cages, not bottles (like King, who made the stainless steel cages I use) and not have to worry about whether your bottle will fit into it.

Most bikes sold today have threaded  bits on the downtube (and, sometimes, the seat tube) for mounting cages.  But, back in the ‘70’s Bike Boom--around the time I became a dedicated cyclist—most bicycles didn’t have them.  In fact, about the only bikes that came with such provisions were made by constructeurs and other custom builders.  Even top professional-level bikes like the Raleigh Professional and Schwinn Paramount didn’t have bottle mounts.

That meant you needed a pair of clamps—which, in those days, were usually supplied with the cage.  Some would argue that a true “vintage” restoration should include a cage with such clamps—unless, of course, the frame is from a constructeur or other custom builder.  If you look at racing photos from before the early ‘80’s or so, even the top professional riders—including Eddy Mercx on his sunset-orange De Rosa—you can see the clamps.

It was during that time that a few enterprising companies—some of them in the US—came up with some interesting ways of mounting bottles on bikes.

One-clamp cage from Specialites TA, ca. 1975.

Specialites TA of France, which made the cages most racers and high-mileage riders used in those days, made a single-clamp cage.  I mounted one on my Romic and never thought about it:  Like TA’s other cages, it held the bottle securely while allowing easy removal and was all but indestructible.

A Tennessee-based company called Hi-E, which made ultra-lightweight (for the time, anyway) hubs, pedals and other components, came up with their own version of TA’s cage.  Hi-E made their cage from aluminum alloy and it was fixed to the frame with a stainless steel hose clamp.  American Classic would later make a similar cage in Ohio, along with its own lightweight components.

Others found ways of doing away with the cage altogether.  Rhode Gear came up with what was probably the most popular of them.  Their bottle had an extrusion with “tracks” on each side that fit into grooves on the plastic clamp mounted onto the bike.  It was actually quite good—I had one on myPeugeot “fixie”—and became very popular with club cyclists.  Other companies imitated it.

Rhode Gear bottle, ca. 1978

Its advantages were its simplicity and (if you’re a weight weenie) the elimination of 100 grams or so of steel cage and clamps.  Also, it could be mounted on the seat tube of a bike with short chainstays and little clearance between the tire and seat tube.  In fact, I put another Rhode Gear bottle on my Trek racing bike, which had water bottle mounts on the down tube but not the seat tube.

Plus, after a while, they were made in a bunch of colors as well as basic white and black.  The white ones could be had with the logos of a few large bike manufacturers (I had one with a Peugeot emblem) or, for a time, with club logos or other custom designs.

The disadvantage, as you may have figured, is that it was a proprietary design:  You could only use the bottle designed for the system.  At least the bottle was easy to use and sturdy:  I never heard of one cracking or springing a leak, though a few wore out at the tracks, albeit after a lot of hard usage.

Cannondale made a bottles that attached to its “mated” holders with Velcro.  I never tried such a bottle, but a few riders I knew liked them.  The best thing about them, it seemed, was that the bottle could be put into the holder from any angle.  As one fellow club rider said, “When I’m tired, my aim isn’t as good.”  While riding, he could put the Velcro-coated bottle back in its holder without looking at it.

Cannondale bottle and "cage" with Velcro

One other cageless bottle I used had indentations on its sides designed so that the bottle would “snap” in between the seat stays of most bikes. Most bikes at that time had parallel stays of more or less the same diameter placed more or less the same distance apart.  Of course, such a bottle wouldn’t work on many of today’s bikes, including those with monostays.  Also, as you might expect, the bottle was small:  less than half the size of a standard water bottle.  It did come in handy, though, especially on a training ride on a hot day.  

I don’t know what happened to that bottle.  I think I stopped somewhere, drank from it and absentmindedly left it.  When I realized I no longer had it, I couldn’t find another:  Apparently, they were made only for a year or two. 

As water bottle cage fixtures became standard features on mass-produced bikes, the demand for cageless bottles and single-clamp cages fell off.  By the late 1980s, it seemed that no one was making them anymore. 

RDR Bologna bottle

  

 However, a few years ago, RDR Bologna made a water bottle with a slot in the rear that’s designed to slide directly onto the water-bottle braze on.  I haven’t used one, and don’t know anyone who has.  But, from what I can see, it has all of the advantages and disadvantages of the Rhode Gear bottles I used back in the day.

A Water Bottle Cage Decaleur? From Specialites TA?

I know I'm working on a project--or doing my usual late-winter/early- spring maintenance and overhauls--when I'm spending way too much time on eBay.

That's when I start to find all sorts of weird and interesting stuff. To wit:

The seller, in Austria, says it's a French-made, possibly by Specialites TA. I couldn't find any reference to it in TA brochures or catalogues I've located on-line. Given that the cage is French, and looks interesting and well-made, it's easy to understand why the seller might think it's from TA.

The shape of it is echoed, at least somewhat, in the beautiful Nitto R cage.  But the Nitto cage is not made to be used with clamps. Perhaps the cage I saw on eBay isn't, either. That leads me to wonder whether whoever made the cage also made the mechanism that attaches it to the clamps--and, according to the seller, allows it to be easily removed from the clamps.  Or was it made by whoever bought the cage and installed it on his or her bike?

Hmm...Were water-bottle cages being lifted from parked bikes?  I can't think of another reason for a mechanism like that. A decaleur for water bottle cages?  What a concept!

Vessels Of Reflection

The heat's been turned up, again.


No, I'm not being chased. (Nor am I chaste--at least not by choice!)  And, thankfully, I'm not talking about my apartment or workplace, at least not now.

Instead, I'm talking about the weather.  The weekend, clear through Monday, was very mild for this time of year.  So I did a couple of good rides--ones I've written about before on this blog, but pleasant to do again nonetheless.

Yesterday the heat and humidity began to creep up.  Today's a full-blown "dog day".  I'm glad I brought a water bottle with me when I rode to work.  If this weather continues, it's going to get a lot of use.

If you've been following this blog, you've probably noticed that I use stainless-steel bottles.  I got into that habit around the time Chris started Valo Orange.  I think my first, or possibly my second or third, order from them included two of those bottles.

Like most cyclists of the past half-century or so, I'd been using plastic bottles.  I think the best was one of the first I had.  Specialites TA of France made it. 

At the time, I had no idea that my bottle differed from the ones used by most riders in the European peloton only in the graphics.  More precisely, mine had none:  It was just plain, stark white.  But what made it so great was its nozzle:  To this day, I haven't used any other that's easier to drink from while riding.

Specialites TA continues to make bottles and cages to this day, but they seem to have discontinued the nozzle I've mentioned not long after I got my bottle.  I know that if I really wanted another one, I could get it on eBay. All I'd have to do is outbid some Japanese collector who would pony up $200 or so.  I don't know which would be more questionable:  paying that much for a plastic bottle (even if it is TA!  even if it is French!) or drinking from a 40-year-old plastic bottle.

Before plastic, there was stainless steel, which brings to mind the joke about the "permanent" that's guaranteed for 90 days. (Old stainless steel took six months, vs. three for normal steel, to rust.) And there was aluminum, which most cyclists used.

Of course, aluminum had its own hazard:  People were poisoned by bottles that weren't properly cleaned or aired out.  (I heard of similar stories about aluminum canteens, like the one I had when I was a Scout.)  But they certainly had style.

So did the folks who decorated them:

Now, here's a question for all of you straight guys and lesbians:  Does this heat you up more than the water in it could cool you off?

If you prefer fast machines to fast...well, OK, I won't go there...here's something for you:

Interestingly, Monet Goyon was a manufacturer of motorcycles as well as bicycles in Macon, France.  Believe it or not, there were once two dozen or so French companies making motorcycles (or motorized bicycles of one kind or another) on French soil.  Most, like Peugeot, Motobecane and Solex, started as bicycle manufacturers.  Some abandoned either the motorized or human-powered markets; others, like Monet Goyon folded altogether.  Today there are a number of specialty and custom motorcycle makers, as well as a couple of reincarnations of old marques, making their wares in France.

Now, for those of you who don't care about motorized vehicles or gender politics, and are saying to yourselves, "I came here to read about bicycles," here's something you might prefer:

Actually, even if you don't care about bicycles, you might like that one.  I think it's one of the more tasteful testaments to France's most famous bicycle manufacturer I've seen.

All of the bottles pictured in this post are reproductions and are available from Vintage Bike Shop.