>Jan Heine wrote:
>>
>(snip)
>> TA cranks are mentioned several times in Le Cycliste: Announced
>> around 3/1959, but not yet available (and they didn't say it would be
>> cottered!). 1/1960: article on design, with cottered
>> pear-shaped axles. 9/1960: Definitive Rebour article on the TA cranks.
>> 11/1962: Square taper cranks announced.
>>
>> I have seen the pear-shaped cranks on 1961 and 1960 bikes. Whether
>> they were original equipment, I don't know. However, little else on
>> the 1960 bike appears to have been changed...
>
>Jan,
>
>Maybe T.A. didn't say the mod. Criterium crank would be cottered but
>what else could it be with a hole though the crank identical to any
>other cottered crank and the allen bolt device shown in this photo:
><http://homepage3.nifty.com/ClassicBicycles/brands/components/TACriteriumBB.jpg>
><http://members.aol.com/satorumas/brands/ta_criterium_crank.html>
Chuck,
What I was trying to say is that the first Rebour drawings don't show the hole, and that nothing in the first announcements said they were going to be cottered. Maybe they planned to do a square taper at first, or they didn't want to tip off the competition of their "radical" new design... in any case, the 1959 announcement makes you think of a square taper crank - without saying as much.
Only when the cranks were formally introduced in late 1960, did the Rebour drawings show the cotters, etc.
I agree with you that I never have seen any evidence for a non-cottered (square taper) TA crank that early - those came two years later.
The reason for the cottered design was that racers echewed aluminum cranks mostly because the Q factor (distance between pedals) was larger. They were very picky about that, and chainline, less so about weight. (Almost all used steel-railed saddles when they could have taken 200 g off their bikes with an aluminum-railed Ideale.)
So TA figured they could combine the light weight of aluminum with a very low Q factor (almost as low as a cottered steel crank). Alas, in the mean time, Campagnolo's and Stronglight's square taper cranks became accepted by racers (Q factor or not), so the TA became an orphan, used only by cyclotourists and maybe some amateur racers.
--
Jan Heine, Seattle
Editor/Publisher
Vintage Bicycle Quarterly
c/o Il Vecchio Bicycles
140 Lakeside Ave, Ste. C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com