[CR]In defense of Regina freewheels...

(Example: Production Builders:Teledyne)

Date: Fri, 2 May 2008 18:43:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Fred Rednor" <fred_rednor@yahoo.com>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
In-Reply-To: <481910D6.4000901@verizon.net>
Subject: [CR]In defense of Regina freewheels...

I admit the design had it's flaws when it came to applying the removal tool. And believe me, I tried all the tools avaialble at the time: a proper Regina tool, a Bicycle Research tool (with a locator ring), a Cyclo tool with narrowed prongs (to get the tightest fit possible), plus a couple of other brands of tools. Yes, often times they all provided the same sad results...

But I never found removing sprockets to be a problem. The smaller ones came off with a chain tool by locking the largest sprocket in a freewheel vise. (And you could make one of those with a piece of angle iron and a couple of flat head bolts.) To remove the larger sprockets, I installed the smaller ones, mounted those in the vise - i.e turning the freewheel upside down - and removed the larget sprockets in the usual manner.

Once installed on the hub, the Regina freewheel had one property that was really useful: it was about 3mm narrower than freewheels that used splines for mounting their sprockets. And with many Italian frames, that was the difference between proper operation and the chain rubbing on the stays when shifting in an out of the small sprocket.

Plus, by the mid-1970s, the Regina boxes were already so classic you could cry...
      Best regards,
      Fred Rednor - Arlington, Virginia (USA)


--- On Wed, 4/30/08, Harvey Sachs wrote:


> From: Harvey Sachs <hmsachs@verizon.net>
> Subject: [CR]Yes, Virginia, Regina FW designs were flawed.
> To: mike@scammoncycles.com, john@os2.dhs.org, "Classic Rendezvous" <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Date: Wednesday, April 30, 2008, 8:37 PM
> I submit that the Regina and Atom FW designs were poorly
> thought out. I
> suspect that the 5, 6, and 7-speed versions were just
> stretching earlier
> designs; no one would have done so many poor choices all at
> once.
> --> The two-prong remover was at very best user-hostile.
> Sure, we all
> learned the work-arounds, like using a skewer to hold
> things together,
> but that is not good design.
> --> The incredible inelegance of a fundamental design
> that made it all
> but impossible to remove all 5 cogs. Yup, could do it with
> special
> tooling, but...a design that was inherently hard to work
> on.
> --> and there were how many different bodies, with how
> many different
> thread types for the cogs? To say nothing of flanged cogs,
> etc.
> --> And, the sheer elegance of the pair of LH threaded
> cogs on the inside.
>
> Compare with the contemporary CycloPans, or the British
> TDC, both of
> which used splined cogs. Easy to make, easy to change.
>
> I still have a bunch of Regina FW, at my age surely a
> life-time supply.
> I use them where they are appropriate. Otherwise, I much
> prefer the
> lowly Suntour Perfect (14 th min).
>
> harvey sachs
> mcLean va 22101
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> I just used the skewer method to hold the tool in place.
> Never had one
> slip. I agree they could have
> made the the prongs thicker from the beginning though.
>
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 6:19 AM, John Thompson
> <johndthompson@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> >> mike scammon wrote:
> >>
> >
> >>> > Was it really flawed? Or did something
> just come out that was
> better?
> >
> >>
> >> In the late 70s, Regina changed from the fragile
> 2-prong design to the
> >> same splined design used by Atom and Zeus.
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> -John Thompson (john@os2.dhs.org)
> >> Appleton WI USA
> _______________________________________________

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