I dug out the Sutherlands, which had been packed away for some remodeling, and it says the Competition inner was 151 mm BCD, some as old Campy Record. So the smallest possible ring is 44T, which it going to hurt these tired old legs on any decent climb. So it would be good if TA or Stronglight 49 rings could be made to fit.
It seems that while many marques used the very small 5 pin circle for the outer ring, there were all sorts of different circles for the inner ring. Zeus used 151, Stronglight 122 and Nervar 128. TA used at least three different inner circles, 80 for Cyclotourist, 116 for Randonneur and 152 for Criterium. I wonder if this means that Zeus only adopted the 120 mm circle with the introduction of the Criterium cranks, which I'm guessing was in the late 60's.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Big Spring, TX
s <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net> wrote: The Zeus cranks you refer to, or at least one such crank, is the Zeus Competition, which was found on the late 60's Raleigh Competition, perhaps giving the bike its name. Sutherland's lists the outer ring as the same as TA, Stronglight 49, and many others, and it looks like it should interchange, but others on the list have reported it didn't quite work. I have a couple of these cranks, so perhaps I'll try it myself. One reason it might be desirable to use TA rings is that, as I recall, the Zeus Competition inner ring has a relatively large circle, similar to Campy NR, or maybe even old Campy 151 BCD Record, so you couldn't use as small an inner ring as TA, or even Stronglight. The more recent Zeus Criterium, 2000 and New Racer were much better, with a 120 BCD (or 119 depending which edition of Sutherlands you believe). This allowed an inner ring at least as small as 36T. Only unfortunate thing is that Zeus didn't make the circle just 2mm larger so the rings would interchange with the classic Stronglight rings, including the inner ring of the mod 49.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Big Spring, TX
Stronglight49@aol.com wrote: John Strizek wrote:
#1 Does the Zeus crankset with the small five pin inner circle have the same as TA 5 pin inner circle? In effect can one use TA chain rings on a Zeus. The look is the same but I do not know if there is interchange possibility.
----------------------------------- Harvey Sachs wrote
My memory was that I tried this, "back in the day," and that the Zeus did not interchange with Stronglight-TA-Williams-Duprat and others...
----------------------------------
Wow. For some reason, I have never seen Zeus chainrings in this size. However, the 5-pin design pre-dates any of the more familiar Marques, so I'm sure this is quite possible.
In addition to those mentioned by Harvey, I also recall : Durax Solida Gnutti Nervar Milremo
BOB HANSON, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, USA
**************************************See AOL's top rated recipes (http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004)