Sheldon Brown wrote:
>
>
>That had 48-44-38 chainrings, not a huge range by modern standards,
>with 14-16-18-20 in back.
>
>My 1957 OTB came with one of these on a Rosa 48/30 double, a rather
>unusual touring setup. This bike also came with an "alpine" type
>freewheel: 14-16-19-26.
>
Your Rochet, being a production bike, did not offer the gear range you'd find on a top-drawer cyclotouring machine. Most of the equipment was an odd adaptation of racing gear, which you wouldn't find on a well-spec'd Herse, Singer or Routens. A typical Herse triple from the 1950s is 48-40-32. I have seen a Singer with 50-42-36, which makes a bit less sense. In both cases, with a 14-22 or 15-22 on the rear. But most of these bikes used doubles until the 1960s, when triples became popular, both in racing and for cyclotouring bikes. I suspect the Singer above was influenced by Anquetil's gearing when he climbed the Puy de Dome...
The 48/30 is not unusual at all for a French cyclotouring bike. On doubles, the big ring usually was 48 or 46, the small one 32 or 30, rarely 28. Still a good choice today. (See the article in VBQ vol. 1. No. 1)
Triples, while widely available from the 1940s onwards, often were
considered superfluous, because hardly anybody needed that many
gears. Our PBP tandem originally came with a 46-28, but we changed
that to a 48-32. With a 14-23 freewheel, it was fast enough for the
flats and gentle downhills, yet had small enough gears to climb the
hills of Brittany.
--
Jan Heine, Seattle
Editor/Publisher
Vintage Bicycle Quarterly
http://www.mindspring.com/