Speaking of Mavic/Simplex, were the drop parallelogram Mavic derailleurs always paired with Retrofrictions, rather than the later Mavic shifters which supported indexing on the next generation horizonal parallelogram RDs? Were the Retrofrictions used by Mavic always marked Mavic, or would the unmarked ones or maybe even the Simplex marked cutout ones be correct?
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Houston, TX
> Peter Jon White wrote:
> >
> > The Mavic derailleurs were all made by Simplex. (cut)
>
>
> Are you sure, Peter?
>
> I know that Mavic bought out Simplex sometime in the 1980s. And I have
> seen lots of photos of the Mavic factory showing them machining the
> crank forgings they got from SR (Japan) and machining their hub
> forgings. And it is very obvious looking at the design of the rear
> derailleur that the body, its internals and pulley plates are designed
> to be made by CNC machining (you can even see the machining marks in the
> outer plate of the 1st generation with the engraved "MAVIC" letters).
> And separate pulley cage stops and upper pivot stop (usually missing) of
> stamped stainless steel to make the CNC machining steps as simple as
possible.
>
> I once saw "SIMPLEX" marked pulleys on a Mavic derailleur, but I put
> this down to Mavic having bought out Simplex!
>
> I know that Mavic outsourced many of their parts such as the MODOLO
> sourced brakes, LOOK sourced clipless pedals, Simplex sourced
> retrofriction shift levers, but their derailleur looks to me to be
> designed as simply as possible so they could CNC it themselves.
>
> Of course, I don't have any documents to back up any of the above
> conjecture and am eager to learn what you know.
>
> Chuck Schmidt
> South Pasadena, Southern California
>
> .