Quoth R.S. Broderick wrote:
>...the 1973 introduction of the official Dura-Ace line of
>components, which at that time actually included the Crane
>derailleur (...and just for the sake - pun intended - of playing a
>little Trivial Pursuit here, how many folks out there knew that
>Shimano initially chose the term Crane for its premier derailleur
>due to the fact that the majestic bird has a special place in
>Japanese society wherein it is closely associated with strength and
>longevity - excellent virtues for any derailleur to be sure, but a
>translation that was unfortunately lost on the American and European
>markets which is why the Crane name was eventually dropped in favor
>of the term Dura-Ace).
Actually, other early Shimano derailers were named for birds, notably the Lark and the Eagle.
The Lark and the Eagle were the Rodney Dangerfield derailers, because they didn't get no respect...They were heavy steel units, especially the Eagle which featured a built-in crash bar, but they shifted better than ANY other '70s derailers.
They suffered the stigma of low price, and were generally only supplied on low-end bikes as a result, but they were great products.
These derailers also featured a nifty Shimano invention that is no longer available, unfortunately. The anchor bolt was mounted on a spring loaded arm, so you could "preselect" a lower gear by yanking back on the lever if you accidentally got stopped in too high a gear. As soon as you would start to pedal, the spring would shift the derailer down to whatever position you had selected.
The clever Shimano folks did this without needing to add an additional spring, they just used the un-used end of the parallelogram return spring.
Sheldon "Shimanophile" Brown
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| "Shimano's policy was that ten percent of their work |
| force must be graduate engineers...By the mid-1970's, |
| Shimano probably had more people working on research and |
| development than all of their competitors combined... |
| the (1985) SIS Dura-Ace was the first computer-optimized |
| rear derailleur...In 1985, Shimano had about 40 percent
| of the U.S. market...By 1994, Shimano had more than 90 |
| percent of the U.S. market." |
| --Frank Berto: "The Dancing Chain" |
+------------------------------------------------------------+
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