I remember there was a Columbine shown at the Hand Built bla bla bla Show that used a Campagnolo Sport 3 pin with TA adapter and rings which was pretty cool, especially if you had one of those cranks and was looking for replacement rings.
BOB FREITAS out the door in MILL VALLEY,CA
Jerome & Elizabeth Moos wrote:
> I'm interested in the six-hole 116 BCD Randonneur rings, and hope to
> learn a bit more from this thread. You seem to be saying these were
> designed as a middle/inner ring which attached to the outer ring of a
> TA Cyclotourist crank.
>
> I had been guessing instead that the Randonneur rings were first used
> with the three-arm cottered steel 116 BCD cranks made by very many
> manufacturers. I had about concluded that three holes of the
> Randonneur were used to attach to the crank, while the remaining three
> were used to attach a three-hole 116 BCD inner ring like the TA
> Professional. One reason I thought this is that most of the few
> Randonneur rings I have seen are 48T to 52t, i.e. an outer ring, while
> I have seen lots of three hole rings in 42T, 40T or 38T.
>
> Anyone know for sure which applications the Randonneur rings were
> first designed for?
>
> Regards,
>
> Jerry Moos
> Big Spring, TX
>
>
>
>
> Bob Hanson <theonetrueBob@webtv.net> wrote:
>
> Thanks to everyone for their contact regarding my Quest for an elusive
> chainring. I believe I should clarify just what these rings were with
> some further information:
>
> TA made several chainrings which were all drilled with a 5-hole inner
> circle, intended to attach directly to their TA "Professionel 5-vis"
> cranks, as well as to the Stronglight 49D and many others which all
> shared the common 49 mm (2 inch) BCD - which had already been in
> use for
> many decades.
>
> The TA 5-vis "outer" rings all looked very similar; they had 6
> arms and
> all originated from the same forging. They were then bored with 6
> additional holes to attach two or more "inner" chainrings directly to
> those primary outer rings. TA made a few different drilling patterns:
>
> 1. "Cyclotourist" BCD 80 mm.= smallest inner chainring: 26 teeth
>
> 2. "Criterium" BCD 152 mm. = smallest inner chainring: 43 teeth
>
> 3. "Randonneur" BCD 116 mm. = smallest inner chainring: 36 teeth
>
> The last model is rarely seen. It was probably no coincidence that the
> 116 mm BCD is the same diameter found on old Stronglight, Magistroni,
> and many other Steel, cottered cranksets all of which shared a common
> 3-arm pattern.
>
> I would guess that the production of 116 mm rings for the 6-arm, 5-pin
> cranksets seemed to make perfect sense to TA... at least initially.
>
> This was also the same BCD eventually adopted by TA for their
> "Professional 3-pin" crankset.
>
> However, perhaps TA soon decided that the small "cyclo-" chainrings
> really made this size an unnecessary duplication - one which they
> would
> also need to stockpile - and just for the sake of a few mid-size inner
> rings.
>
> So, for what ever reason, TA seems to have either quickly dropped the
> model entirely, or simply never distributed them widely - at least not
> in North America.
>
> This is unfortunate, because I think they were a very useful size.
> And,
> placing the chainring bolt closer to the teeth of the inner ring
> probably made that chainset more rigid than the 80mm BCD fitting.
>
> You may notice that in recent years FSA and other manufacturers have
> introduced "compact" road cranksets with a 110 BCD these all accept
> small inner rings of 34t... very similar to the old TA Randonneur
> crankset.
>
> So, if anyone does indeed come across any 36 tooth 116mm BCD TA alloy
> chainrings, by all means, please do let me know... Or, certainly, just
> save them and treat them like little treasures.
>
>
> Bob Hanson, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
>
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