As for the appearance of threadless stems on French bikes, Jim Cunningham's Alex Singer has what appears to be a threadless stem. It's on the Singer page in Classic Rendezvous -
http://www.classicrendezvous.com/
I'm not sure what year Jim's bike was produced; it is earlier than my Singer, which has a stem with conventional expander wedge, but the threadless steerer design certainly dates to the 50s if not before.
A quick look at the drawings in the "Rebour Data Book" will confirm that there is precious little that's not been thought of before.
===================================================== Mark Petry 206.618.9642 Beautiful Bainbridge Island, WA mpetry@bainbridgeisland.net ===================================================== Every person serves a useful purpose: A miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor.
-- Laurence J. Peter
====================================================
Message: 22 Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 10:36:13 -0500 From: LouDeeter@aol.com To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: Re: [CR]Jan Heine's Newsletter, Copy 2
I've been looking at the pictures in the Vintage Bicycle Quarterly, number 2. For those of you with a copy (sorry for those CR Listmembers who can't follow along with this): 1) Page 14, figure 6 appears to be a threadless stem on a Routens seen in 1956, very similar in design to what is seen today. Anybody know when this design was first used? 2) Page 18, figure 11 shows a brake lever shifter, that is very similar in function to the Campagnolo Ergo shifters--lever with button. This is from a 1949 bike. Does anyone know of earlier brake lever shifting mechanisms? Lou Deeter, amazed and intriqued by these early machines. Orlando FL