Spence was very proud of his Alpine derailleur mod; for the times (mid-'60s into the early '70s) it offered a real improvement over what was available. However, he would be the first to tell you that with the arrival of better touring derailleurs like the Shimano Crane, it was no longer the best choice and he counseled riders to move with the times.
FWIW, Spence had the swing arm parts made to his spec by a local metal fabricator and then taken to the chromer for their finish; the design and production was all his doing. He modified quite a few Record derailleurs for local riders wanting to tackle the very steep Santa Cruz Mountains near his shop, or the Alps for some of his more adventuresome customers--but our shop photo album showed them in use around the globe.
Later, some rear Nuovo Records got a similar treatment. But as I wrote, the second version (NR) coincided with the arrival of the good Japanese derailleurs, so these were really just for folks who couldn't bear to put a Japanese derailleur on an otherwise all-Campagnolo, or European component-equipped bike. (Honest--that's the way many cyclists thought back then.) Nonetheless, Spence installed quite a few Cranes on the bikes of riders with more open minds (but these early models tended to wear out rather quickly with hard use, so it wasn't all snobbery that kepts some riders away from them). Not long after, he recommended the Huret Duo-Pars when they came on the scene. (He wasn't so fond of the Sun Tour models such as the VGTs, etc., but I can't recall what he told me about why this was so.)
Anyway, when I was working with Spence we had a box in 'the morgue' holding the last few bits of the Alpine mods and he walked me through their development and installation. It was a straight forward, good-shifting design and utterly reliable--a good thing for touring far from home. Even by the early '80s we were still servicing quite of few of the oldest ones; the darn things just wouldn't wear out and their owners were still pleased with the shifting performance. However, the prospect of getting more gears with the narrow freewheel spacing (7 or 6 cogs versus 5 on the old set-up) in the '80s is what usually caused owners to stop using them, not parts failure.
If you visit Cupertino Bike Shop, the owner, Vance Sprock, should have at least one of the Alpines on view. Or, it the display of old parts has been changed, there are several close-up photos showing them in all their glory. Overall, very nice units--but, as Spence would say, they were superceded by better equipment.
Bill "very happy with my rear Ultegra long-arm derailleur" Bryant Santa Cruz, CA
Ps-- did your old Cinelli hubs *really* go into the trash? Oh, man!! :-(
on 8/31/02 2:39 PM, ROBERT L. FREITAS at freitas1@pacbell.net wrote:
> I own one and I do not believe SPENCE actually made them, I think
> they were made by someone else(a person I met riding on the NO.CALIF
> coast in 1976)
> Was used with TA cranks with ultra small gears, it consists of a
> RECORD body with a CYCLO idler on one end and a SIMPLEX TOURIST 303
> pully on the other
> and used a very nice chromed arm to connect it all(looked for the
> donut but its not there)
> Gearing on this bike as I remember was a 13-26 cluster and a
> 53-45-28t frt
> bike had CINELLI HUBS which I think went to the recyclers with the
> CONSTRICTOR rims long ago(DUUUUHHHHHHH)
> BOB FREITAS
> MILL VALLEY,CA