the web address is below for contacting Bobke. I'm sure that he will appreciate the info. I've met him at numerous races and he is quite friendly and unique.
Have a great weekend.
-----Original Message-----
>From: Jan Heine <heine94@earthlink.net>
>Sent: Jul 20, 2007 10:40 AM
>To: Tom Dalton <tom_s_dalton@yahoo.com>, Classic Rendezvous <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
>Subject: [CR]Re: history rewritten on Versus TV
>
>Do you have an e-mail address for Bob Roll? Then I'll gladly tell
>him that derailleurs were invented in Great Britain around 1900 -
>before Tullio Campagnolo was even out of diapers - popularized in
>France by Joanny Panel in the 1910s, adopted by French cyclotourists
>through the 1920s and finally permitted in the Tour de France in
>1937. Racers back then mostly used the Osgear Super Champion.
>
>Tullio Campagnolo's "back-pedal" derailleur was invented sometime in
>the 1930s, but used widely by racers only during the second half of
>the 1940s.
>
>The parallelogram derailleur seems to have been invented that year by
>Nivex, and Tullio introduced his first Gran Sport in 1949, which
>indeed created the shape that most derailleurs use to this day.
>
>As an aside, all the above-mentioned derailleurs shifted better than
>the 1970s Campagnolo Super Record, and even that one wasn't so bad.
>(The SR used a geometry that was developed for the much smaller gear
>ranges of the 1950s, so by the 1970s, it had a hard time to cope with
>52-42 and 13-tooth or even 12-tooth small cogs.)
>
>Bicycle Quarterly did a full road test of a large variety of the old
>derailleurs, and found that many worked surprisingly well...
>
>Unfortunately, most mainstream cycling journalists consider history
>and historic bikes just as a scenic backdrop, rather than a serious
>subject for research and study.
>
>Jan Heine
>Editor
>Bicycle Quarterly
>140 Lakeside Ave #C
>Seattle WA 98122
>www.bikequarterly.com
>
>>During last night's TdF coverage on versus, there was a tiny morsel
>>of vintage bike content. In a brief segment about equipment
>>innovations there were a couple of shots of what appeared to be an
>>old Molteni team bike, with SR equipment. It was pretty thrashed
>>and used to represent that arcahic old friction shifting with
>>it's 1st gen SR rear der and knobbly shifters. To their credit,
>>Versus identified derailleur gears as the most significant
>>technological chane to hit the Tour during it's history
>>(pharmaceuticals aside, I suppose). Seems like a good choice to me
>>anyway. Then I had to shudder just a bit, when Bob Roll attributed
>>the invention of the derailleur to Tullio Campagnolo. Now, as far
>>as I'm concened, Tullio invented the light bulb, the Diesel engine,
>>and the integrated circuit, but I'm pretty sure he did not invent
>>the derailleur. In fact, I'm pretty sure that he did not even
>>invent the parallelogram body that Campagnolo first used on the GS.
>>It's my understanding that there is some Juy guy who can take credit
>>for some major invention related to derailleurs, though having not
>>yet read "the book," my knowledge is very spotty.
>>
>>Can someone with more credibility that me (that's a pretty open set
>>of folks) please shoot Bobke an email at Versus TV and set him
>>straight? Jan, you're the first person to come to my mind on this
>>one.
>>
>>Tom Dalton
>>Bethlehem, PA USA
>>
>>
>>
>>Yahoo! oneSearch: Finally,
>><http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=48252/*http://mobile.yahoo.com/mobileweb/onesearch?refer=1ONXIC>mobile
>>search that gives answers, not web links.