It's hard for me to figure the combination of TA rings with 49D arms since Stronglight crankarm metal has always seemed so much softer than TA. Stronglight arms will overdraw onto a spindle with less torque than TA Cyclotouriste.
DF
----------
>From: Jerry & Liz Moos <moos@penn.com>
>To: Hilary Stone <Hilary.Stone@Tesco.net>
>Cc: David Goerndt <davidg@iag.net>, classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>Subject: Re: [Classicrendezvous] Re: Stronglight 49D crank design
>Date: Thu, Nov 23, 2000, 6:24 PM
>
>Well, yet another myth exploded, then. It is certainly widely believed that the
>mod 49 referred to the year of introduction. I now hestitate to state that the
>designations of mods 57 and 63 reflected their introduction dates. You're right,
>one does see a great many 49D cranks with TA Cyclotourist rings. Seems odd that
>buyers would not simply buy a complete TA crankset, though. What was the
>attraction of the 49D arms that caused consumers to go to the trouble of buying
>them, yet substituting TA chainrings? Hard to imagine that sort of thing
>happening much in today's marketing environment.
>
>Regards,
>
>Jerry Moos
>
>Hilary Stone wrote:
>
>> As I I said in my reply I'm not certain exactly which year the 49D was
>> introduced though it is definitely in the 1938 Constrictor catalogue I
>> think perhaps a year or two earlier. But it always was called always 49D.
>> The (( series was never so widely used as a touring crank partly because the
>> inner ring only went to 28T rather than 26T and partly because of the easy
>> TA ring availability which were far more often used than the Stronglight
>> rings. The 49D rings in any case were a superior quality to the 99s.
>> Hilary Stone
>>
>> David Goerndt wrote:
>> Was it always listed as that model number?
>> > It seems Stronglight's designs borrowed bits from previous designs and gave
>> > them a new model number, as an example, the model 57's arm is carried over
>> > to the model 63 with new chainrings, then the arm is redesigned and called
>> > the 93 using the same rings as the 63.
>> >
>> Jerry Moos wrote:
>>
>> Hilary, was the 49D designation, at least, first adopted in that year?
>> Also,
>> granted that the mod 93 wasn't primarily a touring crank, but didn't the Mod
>> 99,
>> with a much smaller bolt circle than the mod 93, and often configured as a
>> triple, displace the 49D as the top Stronglight touring crank in the 70's?
>> For a
>> touring double, the mod 99 should have been superior, as it had an 86mm
>> inner
>> (and outer) circle, while the mod 49 inner was 122mm.