I think all the plastic Criterium RD's had metal reinforced body plates and proper forged jockey cages, which made them shift infinitely better than the similar-looking Prestige, and in fact clearly better than the Campy NR (Simplex had the advantage of the sprung upper pivot which Campy lacked). But I've routinely seen plastic Simplex Criteriums sell for half or even a quarter of the price of this one. Someone else said it is the ball-bearing pulleys that make this one attractiive, so maybe that's it.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Hosuton, TX
Fred Rafael Rednor <fred_rednor@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Can someone tell me what is special about
> this used plastic Simplex Criterium RD had metal reinforced cage plates
> that it should be at $56 with 7 hours
> to go?
>
>
http://ebay.com/
Jerry, Isn't this is the model with the metal reinforcement plates? I don't know how long this model was in production but it strikes me that, relatively speaking, very few made it to the USA and probably even fewer made it to Japan. I also imagine that of the few which arrived, hardly any survived. Although these were more robust than the all plastic model, I suspect people just threw them away due to the similarity in appearance. Yet when set up properly, these work wonderfully. At least that was the case with the pair that I worked on. Those were found on decent-but-inexpensive Frejus (!) bikes that mysteriously appeared in the D.C. area during 1974. C'est la vie... Fred Rednor - Arlington, Virginia
_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Shop for Back-to-School deals on Yahoo! Shopping.
http://shopping.yahoo.com/