How about this!
Grant McLean e-mailed me saying that he thought there was a photo of the cranks being machined in one of Mavic catalogs from the 1980s.
I cracked open my copy of MAVIC, A Brief History of MAVIC Bicycle Components (422 pages, covers Mavic components from 1977 through 1995, available from http://www.vel-retro.com ;) and there it was in the Mavic catalog for 1988-89, pg 27, full page color. Pictured is a mill that's machining the edge of a crank forging.
My best guess is that Mavic bought the crank forgings from Sakae Ringyo (SR) and did their own finished machining?
Anyone?
Chuck Schmidt South Pasadena, Pacific Rim
Duane Kennard wrote:
>
> Yup; it's looking that way to me too...
>
> I was surprised though, as I'd heard that Mavic manufactured all their
> stuff except for the brakes. Since O.M.A.S. was machining Ti bits for
> Campagnolo, and they did hubs, BBs, headsets, etc., I thought their
> operation may be big enough for them to do their own cranks as well...
> I guess the investment in forging & crank tooling for both Mavic and
> O.M.A.S. would have been much greater than paying SR for their cranks.
> BTW- how common are those SR Royal cranks? I almost never see them;
> they seem as rare as the Mavic & O.M.A.S.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Duane Kennard
>
> LA,CA
>
> On Tuesday, January 21, 2003, at 10:22 PM, Chuck Schmidt wrote:
>
> > Here's my guess as to the actual manufacturer of the cranks. Compare
> > the size of the individual companies. MAVIC... small. OMAS... small.
> > SR... large (Sakae Ringyo is second largest crank manufacturer next to
> > Shimano).
> >
> > I'll go with SR
> >
> > Chuck Schmidt
> > South Pasadena, Southern California