Garth, From the tone of your message I suspect you've had poor luck with the plastic Simplex derailleurs. I've never owned one but I have many years of experience with various Campi mechanisms as well all-metal Simplex units so I hope my comments are of interest to you. First, I agree that the Valentino front is a decent shifter. Be aware though that it was actually a "re-release" of the old Gran Sport mechanism. The RD was an altogether different story. That unit's ability to shift was related to the tightness of the rivets that also served as pivots. From what I saw, perhaps 20% were just right straight from the factory. Apparently yours was one of these. But most were too tight, requiring an extraordinarily long break-in period. The most expeditous cure was to buy a Suntour derailleur for $8 which was inexpensive even in 1971. As for the shift levers, this story might interest you. I still own the Atala I purchased from the importer's shop (Stuyvesant Bicycle in Manhattan) in 1969. It came with Nuovo Record hubs, derailleurs and shift levers. A couple of years later the shift lever broke while on tour. The boss pulled out from the band - so much for Campi being indestructable. I was in the middle of nowhere and had to use whatever was available, which happened to be a set of plastic Simplex levers. Frankly, the shifting performance improved noticeably. I used those levers for years until I changed back to Campi for reasons of "purity" but I'm still convinced their performance was superior. By the way, that Atala came with one beautiful French part: a lightweight cottered crankset with aluminum rings and spyder adapters. (I don't know how else to describe it without a picture.) Unfortunately, when the chainrings wore out, replacements seemed to be unavailable. Best regards, Fred Rednor - born on a small island off the coast of North America (Manhattan)
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