While perusing my new copy of "The Golden Age of Hand Built Bicycles", I began to wonder about the quality of shifting with some of these early rondonee systems, and how well they compared to the 'modern' design of, say, the Campagnolo Gran Sport of the early sixties. Jan Heine remarked that even with the more modern shifting set ups available, some customers ordered the older Cyclo and Nivex systems well into the sixties. I got to ride a 'Cyclo' shifting tourer around the room on Friday where the events later took place at the 07 Cirque, and kept hitting my foot on the rear shifter's bracket. Along with the bike obviously not being freshly 'tuned' up, I wasn't really impressed with the derailleur. Well adjusted, it might shift quite a bit nicer though, and the Cyclo was the standby for a lot of custom lightweight bikes of the time. And the Nivex, which seems to be entirely under the chain stay and out of the way of my size 12 heel, seems to be a better design, though appearing maybe a bit more fragile. Would someone please, with experience in these shifting systems give us a report on how well these derailleurs worked, their idiosyncrasies, and how they compare to one another? Did an adjuster for the jockey wheel arm's spring on the Cyclo make the shifting that much more reliable? And were there other similar derailleurs around then that compared with the Cyclo and Nivex? I think this is some fascinating stuff that others would like to hear about.
The location of these two 'derailleurs' 2-3" in front of the hub, and the longer jockey wheel arm appears that a much wider gearing could easily be used, and the tiny granny gears on some of these old systems seem to verify that. I'd love an old 50's classic road/track bike (I'd find the place to ride it!), and though I'd wish to own an old racing bike of that era with it's minimal gear band width (chainrings only a few teeth apart, and 3-4 cog fairly closely spaced freewheels), I can't generally ride a racing bike with those gears easily in my very hilly area. I'd love to see how these old soldiers with the Nivex or Cyclo derailleurs can handle the steeper 10-15% grades near my home, even though my spare collector's budget may see this only as a pipe dream.
Happy New Year and Happy trails,
Dan Artley in Parkton, MD