At 7:07 PM -0600 1/8/08, John Hurley wrote:
>In addition to the two replies posted to the list, I got two off-list.
>One of these took a different view and offered that during the 50's and
>60's the Huret Luxe shifters were fairly well regarded.
I seem to recall that in the French magazine Le Cycle in 1963, Daniel Rebour wrote that the Huret Svelto (as the Luxe was called back then) was lightest racing rear derailleur available. The minimalist "folded steel" design saved some real weight. I think they were listed as weighing 238 grams. Consider that a Campagnolo Grand Sport or Record easily topped 300 grams. Simplex' plastic revolution had not produced great weight savings. Campagnolo's NR still was years away.
The Huret Svelto front derailleur appears to have been one of the first parallelogram front derailleurs that found widespread acceptance.
So it appears to have been cutting-edge stuff in France. Tour de France races and PBP events were won with that derailleur - it can't have been all that bottom-of-the-line.
I have only used the long-cage version of the Luxe, and it shifted fine. I think it looked cheap only in retrospect, once the finely cast derailleurs from Campagnolo and Simplex eclipsed it (and folded steel became equated with horrific, cheap derailleurs). Of course, by then, Huret had moved on to the Jubilee... which was as fine a piece of kit as any.
Jan Heine
Editor
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