Re: [CR] BBs for TA Pro 5 Vis cranksarms: old vs. new

(Example: Production Builders:Peugeot:PY-10)

Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 09:32:50 -0700
From: "Derrick Bourgeois" <kommisar89@yahoo.com>
To: Jan Heine <heine94@earthlink.net>, <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Subject: Re: [CR] BBs for TA Pro 5 Vis cranksarms: old vs. new


Hi Jan,

That's even more interesting as I thought the old French stuff used ISO. The French do love their standards. Unfortunately I don't have a ny NR spindles but it makes me want to go pull some cranks and do some meas uring. I have the following spindles: 70's Stronglight, '81 Nervar, 70' s Ofmega, a modern Campagnolo BB cartridge, and a modern Bianchi branded It alian BB cartridge of unknown origin. The modern Camapgnolo and the old Ofm ega are the same. I would bet money that the Bianchi branded one is too and I believe those are ISO but I'll need to verify that with Sutherlands. I n eed to measure the Stronglight and the Nervar now.

Just to be confusi ng, Phil Wood lists the following in the current catalog:

Bottom Brack et Taper Compatibility Campagnolo = ISO Taper    ('94 & later Cam pagnolo cranks) JIS = JIS & older non Low Profile cranks ('93 & earlier Campagnolo and other cranks) JIS Low Profile = JIS Taper (Low Profile cranks)

So they seem to know something that we don't. I'm going to con tact them for clarification. I'll let you know what I find out.

Regard s, Derrick Bourgeois Colorado Springs, CO, USA

----- Origina l Message ---- From: Jan Heine <heine94@earthlink.net> To: Derrick Bour geois <kommisar89@yahoo.com>; classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Sent: Tuesda y, April 7, 2009 9:40:56 AM Subject: Re: [CR] BBs for TA Pro 5 Vis cranks arms: old vs. new

At 9:30 PM -0700 4/6/09, Derrick Bourgeois wrote:


> For a long time I was under the impre
> ssion that most all spindles used either JIS (most Japanese) or ISO (everyb
> ody else) taper. This r ecent discussion however seemed to reveal that Campa
> gnolo taper pre-19 94, which would obviously include NR and SR among others,
>  was not IS O but a proprietary Campagnolo dimension about half way between ISO and J IS.
> .. Can anyone confirm or deny that the pre-1994 proprietary Campagn olo taper
>  existed?

The "half-way" in between standard would exp lain why Campagnolo spindles mate so well with TA and Stronglight cranks. C onsidering that Campagnolo's first cranks were inspired by Stronglight's (a nd perhaps Herse's), it would make sense to use the same "industry-standard " taper. (In 1957, there weren't any other square-taper cranks widely avail able.) TA, or course, copied Stronglight as well, after their proprietary p ear-shaped, cottered BB interface did not sell well.

That makes one wo nder when and how the ISO standard came about... But first somebody needs t o measure an old NR spindle (or 3, to make sure you don't get an outlier in the tolerances).

Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
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