Cat's Cradle--Or Chainring

I promised myself not to make every other post about chainrings with elegant or unusual designs.  And I'm keeping my promise:  I've written three other posts since the one about the Liberia chainring.

So I don't feel guilty about writing another post about a sprocket, especially this one:

 

Its maker, Bespoke Chainrings of Australia, is producing this ring based on the design of one made by French manufacturer Solida around 1910.  

If you bought an entry- (or even mid-) level Peugeot, Motobecane, Gitane or other French cycle during the '70's Bike Boom, there's a good chance it had a Solida cottered crankset.  Some later bikes came with low-priced Solida melt-forged cotterless cranksets; apparently, Solida never made a high-quality forged cotterless crankset. However, at the time the original "cat" chainring was produced, Solida had a reputation that reflected its name: They were solid and sturdy, if not as light or refined as their counterparts from makers like Stronglight, Specialites TA or even Zeus or Nervar.  

That chainring certainly is charming and a temptation.  For now, Bespoke is making it only to fit cranksets with the 50.4mm bolt circle diameter.  Those cranks include the Specialites TA Pro-5-Vis (a.k.a. Cyclo Touriste) and Stronglight 49D, as well as other vintage models from Sugino and Nervar--and, of course, modern near-replicas from Velo Orange.

However, I'm not about to spring for another crankset.  Bespoke plans to make chainrings for cranks with other bolt patterns, including 110 and 130 mm.  If they can  replicate the cat pattern in 110, I'd go for it!

They also make "drillium" chainrings that mimic the ones of the '70's and early '80's and replacement dust caps for vintage Stronglight cranksets.  The rings are made to be used with multiple as well as single gears.

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. 

Which Mercian Should He Ride Today?

It wouldn't surprise you too much to know that one of the blogs on my reading list is Mercian Cycles'.

People are amazed when they find out that I have four Mercians.  My usual response usually goes something like, "I'm the luckiest girl in the world."

(All right, now you know where my priorities lie!)

I figured that there are other people who have more Mercians than I do, but I don't know any personally.  I'd like to meet them--or look at their collection, anyway!

One such person--or, more appropriately, his bikes--are the subject of today's post on the Mercian Cycles blog.

A fellow named Kyle--who goes by the nom de blog "Retrogrouch"--has just restored a 1980 Strada Speciale with period-correct parts, including a first-generation SunTour Cyclone derailleur, Simplex retrofriction levers, milled Sugino Mighty cranks with "drillium" chainrings and Campagnolo Nuovo Tipo hubs.  This Strada Speciale, he says, is his eighth Mercian.

His collection includes vintage as well as modern models--and a modern bike with vintage Campagnolo parts that looks like a vintage bike.  They're all lovely bikes, so it's hard to decide which I liked best.

If you've been following my blog, though, you can probably understand why I like his 2008 Strada Speciale track bike:



or his 2012 Vincitore, built as an urban/path bike:



or, for that matter, his second Mercian, a 1979 "Classic":



I'd love to know how Kyle decides which bike to ride.

From Stealth To Flash

Late in the 1970's Bike Boom, black-anodized parts became popular.


Well, some black-anodized parts, anyway:  specifically, chain rings (especially with silver drillium), pedal cages and, to a lesser extent, shift and brake levers, brakes and hubs.  You see, around the time the '70's Bike Boom began, Campagnolo introduced its Super Record gruppo.  It was really the same as the Record gruppo (often mistakenly called the "Nuovo Record" gruppo because its second and most popular iteration included the Nuovo Record rear derailleur, an update of the Record), with a few upgrades.  The silver steel cages on the Record pedals were replaced with black alloy ones on the Super Record; the SR crank had black chainrings and its bottom bracket could be purchased with a titanium spindle and the slotted SR brake levers could be purchased in black. The rear derailleur got black accents and, later, a body with smoother lines and more streamlined graphics.  (Later still, the derailleur could be had with titanium bolts.) As far as I know, the Campy's hubs or brakes of that era were not offered in black.


Ironically, the SR group was actually a few grams heavier than the plain-vanilla Record set because the brake lever handles and chainrings were made with slightly thicker metal to compensate for the drilling and slotting.  Still, aficianados (Italian for "snobs" or "blowhards") associated Super Record with lighter bikes because Eddy and other Tour riders used it.  So, when Shimano and other Japanese makers began to offer their wares in black, it seemed that consumers with more daydreams than money couldn't get enough.


Mind you, those black Japanese parts were perfectly good stuff:  I used some mainly because I thought they looked good on whatever bike(s) I happened to be riding at the time.  But even though some of their parts (e.g., SunTour derailleurs) were arguably better than  their Campy counterparts, the Japanese makers seemed to believe they had to emulate the eminent Italian components maker in order to enhance their image with the (American, anyway) cycling public.


The rage for black bike parts seemed to fade somewhat by the mid-'80's--ironically, as that same color became de rigueur in the couture of that era.  But it picked up again later in the decade and into the '90's, as the "stealth" look became popular. 


It almost seems counterintuitive, really:  Red cars get more speeding tickets than cars of other colors because they are more likely to be monitored for speeding.  But on bikes, tout noir is associated with vitesse and elan.  It's almost as if people believe that bikes that can't be seen will go faster.


But I don't recall any attempt to give the rider a "stealth" appearance--until now, anyway:

From Barn Door Cycling

Here, it's hard to tell where the rider ends and the bike begins.  Will that make him pedal faster?


Now that I've asked that question, I must say that I've always liked the look of Banesto team kit.  In fact, I had one of their jerseys in the team's early days, and it remains one of my favorite bits of graphic design in bicycle racing garments.

What Will Be The Latest Diet Craze For Bike Parts?

It looks like we're about due for a wave of insane measures to save weight on bike parts.  Of course, some might argue that we are in one.  In any event, it seems that such a cycle comes every other decade. 

In my cycling life, I have witnessed two such bouts of insanity. The first came during the '70's.  Those of you who weren't into cycling (or weren't around) then probably remember other ridiculous fads like disco, droopy mustaches, pastel-colored suits and mood rings.  Well, in cycling, there was something almost as absurd:  an attempt to turn seemingly every bicycle part into a wedge of Emmentaler (or, for us Americans, a piece of Swiss cheese).

  
 Ah, yes, drillium.  I remember it well.  Along with it came slotted brake and shift levers.  Ironically, Campagnolo's cut-out Super Record brake levers actually weighed a few grams more than their smooth-surfaced Record levers.  A company rep said that Campy made the material thicker so to make the levers safe for slotting.

Along with grunge rock and "indie" everything (To me "indie" meant, in the '90's. more or less what "gourmet", when used as an adjective, meant in the '80's:  "pretentious".), the final decade of the 20th Century took slotting one step further.  It seemed that every kid who had an Erector Set as a kid came of age during that decade and either made bike parts or opened a "high concept" shop that sold them:

What will this decade's insane attempt to save a gram bring us?  I would argue that it already gave us one such trend:  almost everything made of carbon fiber.  Now, I can understand why racers would want a carbon fiber frame, and perhaps even a set of wheels--as long as his or her sponsor is paying for them.  But a carbon fiber seat post rack?  Any kind of rack made of that material?  The day we see a carbon fiber GPS system for bikes will be the day when, as Pere Teilhard de Chardin said about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, technology has triumphed over reason.

More Of A '70's Craze

Having come of age in the '70's, I can tell you that a lot of things about that time were goofy.  At least, they seem that way now.  I'm talking about the hair styles, clothing, EST and, of course, disco.

Then there was drillium.  Every component manufacturer voided their warranties if owners cut or drilled cranks, chainrings, derailleurs, brakes and other components.  In fact, Campagnolo and a few other manufacturers offered components that were already drilled or slotted.  Ironically, Campagnolo's slotted brake levers actually weighed more than their smooth ones!  According to Campagnolo, the levers were made thicker so they could withstand the slotting.

Now, I've never seen a Specialites TA three-pin crankset in drillium--until just a little while ago, when I was looking at the e-bay listings. (I have an excuse:  I was selling a couple of items.)  

I actually like it.  In some weird way, it looks Art Deco-ish.  I was tempted to buy it. But, I can't really justify buying anything I don't plan to use soon, and I'm not doing any showroom-worthy vintage restorations.  Plus, I don't know whether Specialites TA still makes replacement chainrings.  As far as I know, no other chainrings are compatible with this crank.

Still, it is nice: probably the best three-pin crankset ever made. The drillium accentuates its lines, and makes a pretty crankset even prettier, in my opinion.

Holy Drillium, Eddy!

No matter how attractive you are, you have at least one photo of yourself that makes you wonder, "What was I thinking?"

It might be the hairstyle or clothing you wore when the photo was taken.  You can excuse yourself by remembering that they were en vogue at the time the photo was taken. Still, you wonder how you or anyone else dressed or looked that way.  

That's how I see most photos of myself.  Similarly, I look at pictures of some of my old bikes, and those my riding buddies and other cyclists rode, and wonder what possessed us to ride some of the stuff we rode. 

There are those scary '80's neon fade paint jobs.  And Benotto handlebar tape:  Available in colors to go or clash with those fade paint jobs!  But the first utterly pointless bike fade I can recall is "drillium."  Weight weenies of the '70's and early '80's drilled and slotted every part of every bicycle on which such things were even remotely possible--and even a few that nobody ever thought to drill.  As an example, holes were drilled in the toe clips of the bicycle Eddy Mercx rode to the hour record in Mexico City in 1972.

But I don't think even he went to this extreme:

Someone is selling it on eBay. Is it a seatpost with holes in it?  Or is it seatpost material formed around the holes?