RE: [CR]1st Edition Super Record brake levers FOUND!

(Example: Racing:Roger de Vlaeminck)

From: "Mark Bulgier" <mark@bulgier.net>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: RE: [CR]1st Edition Super Record brake levers FOUND!
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 16:46:05 -0700


Marc Boral wrote:
> Another wrinkle: #17 catalog show the SR lever as having
> (9) holes on the outer rows, and the middle row having (10).
> Yikes!, this complicates things even further.

By Jove you're right! I love this shit! By the way I've been meaning to ask, how many angels can dance on a head of a Campy down tube shift lever, assuming one angel per bump? ;^)

Looking in my #17, I see the SR seatpost shows the Globe logo, confirmed by Jim Merz as they way the first ones came. But I was looking at my 2-bolt SR posts, and they don't even have enough room there for the globe logo - I guess the later ones like mine have the flutes come up higher. (Sorry for mixing the discussion threads like this, but it didn't seem like it was worth a separate posting.) I confirmed, in the '74 Raleigh catalog and the '75 also, the flutes don't come up as high as on either of my early SRs. The Benotto Catalog shows the style post I have, with only enough room above the flutes for a script logo.
>I'll take your word on the Benotto since I do not have that catalog,

Check out http://bulgier.net/pics/bike/Catalogs/benotto2/4.jpg Anyone know what year it is? I'd guess '77 since they mention Moser's '76 worlds win.

And on the question of old long reach levers vs newer short-reach ones: I may be repeating what someone else said, but I did just lay the one on the other, and the curve is slightly different. As Richie said, the main difference is more metal right at the top on the newer ones, making them rotate down and closer to the H-bar, but the old ones also have a little more re-curve down at the bottom and a slightly pointier tip.

Thanks to whoever pointed out that the extra metal at the top is all above the logo, so you can tell quickly which it is by the space between the top of the logo and the top of the lever - handy when you don't have both levers right at hand to compare.
> I'll start researching this further. Maybe some pics of
> Eddie Merckx's bikes from the '73-'75 period will show SR levers?

Maybe this is a legend, but I thought I heard Eddy drilled his stuff (or, more likely, had it drilled for him) before Campy came out with SR - that in fact SR was in part Campy trying to keep up with the fashion popularized by Eddy.

So maybe what you have is a pair of Eddy's personal brake levers? ;^)

Mark Bulgier
Seattle, Wa
USA