I know that I am going to have my knuckles rapped again for not paying attention in class, but I have to ask once more because I still do not follow the story of the early days. 1. Tullio invents the QR, presumably his only product until the derailleur in 1933. He patents the idea in Italy and one supposes in other countries shortly after. The idea of a cam acting axially on the skewer and the toothed dropout are the original ideas. 2. He opens a "small factory". What does this make? The QR skewer? I expect that FB were able to supply axles drilled through and we know that the other parts of the hub were still marked as FB. 3. Later axles were certainly marked CAM which to me suggests that they were made for rather than by Campagnolo, but of course I could be quite wrong there. 4. I suppose I am being insular asking this, but when did the QR hubs appear in Britain. I know they were here in 1939 but that is almost a decade after their invention. 5. A small factory assembling parts made for them is very different from the company which was making Gran Sport equipment onwards. Am I right in supposing the start to be that small? Did they grow slowly and organically or was there a large injection of capital at some point?
I realise that none of this is as interesting as bicycles, but it is late at night and pitch dark so curiosity draws me to the keyboard
Stuart Tallack frowning in puzzlement in West Sussex