On Apr 22, 2007, at 10:53 AM, Jan Heine wrote:
> Chuck brought the discussion of steel vs. aluminum cranks from the
> iBob list to this list. He claims that there is no support for
> Bicycle Quarterly's assertion that racers in the 1940s and 1950s
> were concerned about the tread (Q factor) of their cranks.
>
> (Bicycle Quarterly wrote that the wider tread, rather than the
> (unfounded) fear of breaking cranks, was behind the resistance of
> professional racers to adopt aluminum cranks, which were introduced
> in 1933, but only found widespread adoption in the 1950s.)
>
> In Le Cycle July/August 1962, P. Delay, the chief mechanic of the
> Tour de France, wrote:
>
> "But it is obvious, that because of demands of the racers, who always
> want to reduce the width of the pedaling [Jan's note: what we call
> tread/Q factor today), the manufacturer was moved to reduce the
> thickness of the cranks by 2 mm."
>
> Delay refers to the Campagnolo cranks that were redesigned in 1962
> with thinner-section armsn (see full quote below).
>
> I believe that this quote supports BQ's article that tread (Q
> factor) was considered important among pro racers at the time -
> note the "_always_ want to reduce the width of the pedaling."
>
> If anybody has a contemporary reference from the 1940s or 1950s
> that contradicts this, I'd like to hear about it...
>
> Until somebody finds such a reference, everything else is just
> speculation. Of course, this was discussed here before (check the
> archives), but it seems that evidence alone isn't enough to
> convince people to abandon long-held beliefs.
>
> Jan Heine
Jan writes, "He (Chuck) claims that there is no support for Bicycle Quarterly's assertion that racers in the 1940s and 1950s were concerned about the tread (Q factor) of their cranks."
No actually my claim is that pro cyclists were concerned about aluminum crank breakage before the mid 1950s and only used them on the mountain stages and that had nothing to do with tread/Q factor. They were distrustful of aluminum cranks and only used them on the mountain stages (starting in the early 1950s?) and used their tried and true steel cranks the rest of the time.
My question now would be about your Delay quote: would that be "always" meaning back to the 1900s or "always" as in the 1960s when P. Delay was quoted in Le Cycle?
Explain the amount tread/Q factor has grown and shrunk over the last one hundred years. My understanding is that tread would be calculated to the centers of the pedals and pedals varied in width like the dimension of crank face to crank face varied over the years. Let's see some numbers to go along with a lone quote from 1962.
There have been industry magazines like Le Cycle over the last hundred years in cycling countries other than France. Surely there must be an ongoing discussion of tread in the Italian industry magazines along with the French industry magazines prior to Le Cycle July/August 1962? Sounds like VBQ has access to the historical literature and you have the language skills to translate the articles concerning tread/Q factor, no? It would make for a great article in VBQ don't you think?
Chuck Schmidt
South Pasadena, CA