There was a very long transition from French to English threading on French-made bikes. It varied by manufacturer and by the particular component, but I'd say the transition period covered the early 70's to the mid-80's.
In my experience, freewheels and pedals were the first threads to be switched to English. English threads for these components first began to appear in the early 70's I think, although perhaps only on bikes sold in US or UK at first. It makes sense these would be the first, since they are more likely to be changed by the average buyer than headsets or bottom brackets. English threaded freewheels were an advantage in countries that generallly used English threading, as a the stock gearing quite often did not suit an individual buyer, and English thread made it much easier to find a replacement FW.
And Campy and some of the then-new pedals from MKS and KKT were cosmetically more appealing to many US buyers than the typical stock Lyotard 45D's and 460D's, so a lot of pedals got changed out at or soon after purchase also. Some pedals also got changed because buyers found the 45D's too narrow. And even though in fact the Lyotard Berthet was an excellent solution to this, and certainly better for wide feed than Campy road pedals, bike boom US buyers were often unaware of the Berthets.
French BB and steerer thread hung on into the 80's, but my 1986 Peugeot PZ-10 is all English thread, and I'm guessing that by that date French thread was pretty much dead on bikes sold in the US, although it may have continued sporatically for a few more years on bikes sold in France. And I'm talking about the major manufacturers here. Low volume French makers who catered to local markets may have used French thread several years longer.
A couple of other changes which are not strickly French to English threading, but which brought French manufacurers into line with the rest of the world, were chainring BCD, crank extractor thread and stem quill diameter/steerer ID.
Stronglight went to the Campy 144 BCD circle in the early/mid 80's with models 106 and 107, ironically about the time Campy was switching to 135 BCD with C-Record. Mavic used 144 BCD on their Campy NR-lke early 80's crank, then 130 BCD (made popular by Shimano) on the Greg Lemonde era "starfish" crank.
Stronglight also switched from their proprietary 23.35 mm crank extractor thread to Campy's 22.0 mm thread in 1982 or 1983. I don't think this was formally an "English" thread standard, but had become a defacto industry standard, expecially after the Japanese became big players in the US and European markets using this extractor thread. TA maintained their 23.0 mm extractor thread for Cyclotourist, but at some point began using 22.0 mm on new models. Anyone know what the TA Tevano used?
The change to English headsets seems also to have generally been accompanied by a change to 22.2 rather than 22.0 mm stem quills, since the larger English steerer OD allows a larger steerer ID without an overly thin steerer wall. Of course one can use English steerer/HS thread and a 22.0 stem by using a thicker steerer wall, but I don't think I've ever seen this combination. Has anyone else? What I have seen, on Swiss bikes, is French steerer thread with a 22.2 stem. This makes one nervous about the thicknes of the steerer wall, but I don't recall hearing of a lot of steerer failures on Swiss bikes of that era.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Big Spring, TX
dominicrose.net@boltblue.com wrote: Could anybody tell me when french threads stopped being used on bikes made in France for the french market and how common they are? There is a four speed currently on ebay.fr but the seller doesnt know which thead it has. I'm trying to decide whether it's best to rebuild a wheel with an english hub than trying to find a four speed french threaded freewheel.
thanks
Dominic Rose London
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