Re: [CR]Yesterday's equipment in modern races

(Example: Events:Cirque du Cyclisme:2007)

From: <themaaslands@comcast.net>
To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org (Classic Rendezvous)
Subject: Re: [CR]Yesterday's equipment in modern races
Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 06:24:08 +0000

Jan always goes on about being accurate and factual, so it would be interesting to find out what he was looking at when he wrote:
> When truly superior stuff
> came out, however, like the Mafac Racer brakes or the Campagnolo Gran
> Sport derailleurs, most pros adopted them rather quickly.

I've gone back through as many old photos of the biggest French races and I can guarantee that Mafac Racers were never adopted by 'most' pros. The Italians, Spaniards, Dutch, Belgians never went for them. In fact, even among the French, they were not even all conquering. The first appearance I can find of them in French races is with Geminiani in 1952. The next 2 years, Gem returned to using sidepulls. During the same years Robic and Bobet used sidepulls (however Bobet did use Mafac levers.) Bobet switched to mafac centerpulls in 1955 and was therefore the first Mafac tour de France winner. Another fact is that apart from Jan Janssen who rode for a French team, there was no non-French user of Mafac brakes to win the tour. Maybe it has something to do with the way the Mafac brakes worked so well for Roger Rivière in 1960. In fact it wasn't really until 1961, that most non-French switched over to centerpulls for the first time. What did they switch to? Universal mod.61!

The same goes for the Gran Sport. It was immediately accepted by all the Italians, but not by other countries. The Italians took it on because the riders were not at all satisfied with the existing Italian-made alternatives. Juy's sponsorship money was then no longer sufficiently attractive to forego nationalism. It is true that the Campagnolo Gran Sport was sufficiently good that it did draw some French teams to switch over, as well as virtually all riders from countries without locally produced derailleurs. It was however not universally accepted as Huret and Simplex kept a virtual stranglehold on the French teams.

--
Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ