I would agree with Dave that for the money it WOULD be hard to beat them if they were still on the market. What is on the market, at least as far as I could find this time last year, is a Tange Levin CDS, which has a very low stack height. The low stack is based on the lower bearing set having a build-up of about 10 mm vs. about 15 mm for the Campy Record (the old steel Stradas, of course) and for the old Tange Levin and the MA-60. For a purist or for the geometry-anal (speaking for myself) the 5 mm head-tube drop varies trail by a smidgeon.
My Levin CDS has some little rubber features in it that may approximate seals, certainly not as good as on a modern Chorus, but at least it's something.
I haven't used the CDS, but I put the MA-60 on my Woodrup, and it feels as good as the steel Record Strada on the Masi GC. The Woodrup is going to get fenders for its birthday, so I'm not too worried about water ingress.
Ken Freeman Ann Arbor, MI
-----Original Message----- From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of David Patrick Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2006 8:33 AM To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: Re: [CR]The Myth of the Tange Levin Headset
Don,
You're missing the point. The Tange Levin does look very nice & very similar to a Campy hs, but that does NOT mean that the parts are interchangable between the Tange & Campy. The Tange Levin headsets are very well made and for the money it's hard to beat them. No myth there at all - it's a fact.
Dave Patrick Chelsea, Michigan
Donald Gillies <gillies@cs.ubc.ca> wrote: I remember hearing a lot of hype about what a great headset the Tange Levin was in the 1970's, and how it looked just like campagnolo, with a channel cut and the name "Tange Levin Japan" printed into the upper and lower channels, and on the top locknut.
Well, I was working on a campy headset and found the bottom race was pitted. So, i took down a NOS tange levin i have for a japanese bike restoration and tried fitting the crown race into the campy cup, to see if a modern tange crown would work. oh, it fit all right, with about 2-3mm of gap between the race and the cup! same gap for the upper race!
"This cannot be" i thought, so i tried putting my campagnolo crown race into the tange levin AND IT FIT LIKE A GLOVE.
I think a better term would be "Tange Open-Air Headset", at least for these vintage models. I would think that water penetration would be quite likely with these headsets.
Does anyone know if the modern models (Levin or Passage) are any better, or are modern Tange headsets using this "Open-Air" design? Is there another modern or recently extinct headset that can be used to replace the crown race on a campagnolo nuovo record with a better fit? I am aware that BC sells triomphe crown races but I was wondering about recent production?
Even my OFMEGA headset puts the tange levin to shame.
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA