Well, I wouldn't go quite that far, but I'd say with Lyotard, pedal thread was highly negotiable. A couple of years ago, I measured a large number of Lyotard pedal axles, including several Berthets and found they celebrated the French belief that consistency is the demon of little minds.
One must remember that French pedal thread is nominally 14.0 mm, while English 9/16" is nominally 14.2875 mm, which isn't a huge difference to begin with. With Lyotards, the diameter was pretty much randomly distributed between just under 14.0 and about 14.3 mm. I do think the ones marked as French (D &G or no marking) averaged a little closer to 14.0, while the ones marked as English (R & L) averaged a little closer to 14.3. But a lot, including some with each marking, were about half way in between. I don't think Berthets are any worse in this respect than most Lyotard models.
A couple of years ago, TA deliberately sold some of the otherwise classic TA pedals deliberately designed and touted to fit either French or ISO cranks. I have a couple of pairs, and it actually seems to work. I haven't measured a large number of th TA's, but knowing TA, I expect they very consistently split the difference between 14.0 and 14,2875, while Lyotard used the scattergun model of statistical control.
One other thing, I think Berthets came with three different wrench flat sizes over the years. 15 mm of course, but also two others, can't remember which two among 14,16 and 17.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Big Spring, Texas, USA
Fred Rednor <fred_rednor@yahoo.com> wrote: Another thing about these pedals:
I'm absolutely convinced there was no difference between those that supposedly had French threads and those which supposedly had British threads. Well, perhaps the boxes had different markings, but the small number of axles I measured seemed indistinguishable between the 2 types.
Maybe there was a difference early on, but I'm taking about the
late 1970s and early '80s. It's one reason I refused to keep
using then with cranks that had English threading.
Cheers,
Fred Rednor - Arlington, Virginia (USA)
> I really like the Lyotard Berthet, too, but it is perhaps
> the most "idiosyncratic" pedal around (except the Phil
> platform?).
>
> --> Darned near unique, first platform pedal I ever saw.
> --> Like things Huret, predominantly sheet-metal, cheap
> to fabricate and even to assemble.
> --> Easy to use, just kick the kick plate and foot is in.
> --> Works better than anything else of the era for those
> of us with wide feet.
>
> BUT:
> --> it was a disposable pedal, not particularly easy to work
> on, or made
> with very durable cones and cups. Indeed, as I've recounted
> on these
> pages before, we came to grief touring with these when one
> loosened up
> badly (at aluminum plates pressed to steel barrel) on tour in
> the
> Appalachians. 14 mm, not 9/16th. We held it together with
> radiator
> clamps for the rest of the tour.
> --> Poor standardization. I've seen at least 3 different axle
> lengths -
> and that's just from the inner cone to the end of spindle. I
> can think
> of two lengths of pedal threading (short for steel cranks,
> long for
> aluminum), and the late ones (?) used a forged (?) hex hex
> attachment
> instead of the slots of the earlier (?) ones.
>
> To summarize: a great cheap pedal, but far from my first
> choice any longer for a decent riding pedal.