Well, having just ridden the 70's Romic touring bike home for lunch (with the 1973 Brooks Pro raised from the dead via a bucket of water and better than it has been in at least 15 years), I did some further checking.
All my cottered steel Stronglight arms, except the one, are marked "A 170" presumably Anglais = English. The one that proved a different size is simply marked 170, no A. I also note that the presumably English ones are marked "Verot-Perrin" and "Made in France", while the presumably French one has no such markings. I presume that the "Made in France" marking, which is in English, is to satisfy the import laws of UK or perhaps USA. I suppose the French cranks for the domestic markets had no need of such markings. Anyone know what "Verot-Perrin" refers to?
So, failing a Stronglight English-dimension axle, what's the chance a British made BB axle would work with the Stronglight English arms? I must say, I never knew before that Stronglight made a different cottered axle for the UK market, although I of course did know that they made English thread cups.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Texas, USA
> From: gwlone@yahoo.ca <gwlone@yahoo.ca>
\r?\n> Subject: [CR] Stronglight Cottered BB's
\r?\n> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
\r?\n> Date: Monday, June 1, 2009, 12:03 PM
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Hi list, the slight differing of BB axles and crank arm
\r?\n> holes was a source of much head scratching to my teen
\r?\n> friends and I when we first considered ourselves master bike
\r?\n> mechanics. You know the stage, when the coaster brake hi
\r?\n> rise bar bike or English three speed are essentially old
\r?\n> hat. For my group this occurred in the early 70's when there
\r?\n> was lots of low end French and English bikes in
\r?\n> circulation. Italian bikes of even the lowest quality
\r?\n> were rare and highly regarded, and a Campy anything was
\r?\n> practically a religious icon. Anything that we could acquire
\r?\n> off a better bike ; second hand from a LBS, traded for ,
\r?\n> salvaged ,or what ever , was immediately in the running to
\r?\n> upgrade our favourite steed. Of course not knowing nearly
\r?\n> as much as we thought we did , all sorts of compatibility
\r?\n> issues arose. Sometimes the solution was a rummage thru
\r?\n> our collective parts boxes, sometimes it was a couple of
\r?\n> hours in the High School machine shop, sometimes
\r?\n> things just wouldn't work and the part would become "bait"
\r?\n> for the next trade. Looking back it was all part of the
\r?\n> learning curve, and a distinct part of the pleasant memories
\r?\n> I have of my earlier experience with "on topic "
\r?\n> lightweights. I am probably mistaken, but it seems
\r?\n> only French cranks and spindles were available to fit the
\r?\n> standards of other countries. I have never encountered
\r?\n> British cranks or spindles sized to fit French sizes. What
\r?\n> about Italian, Magistroni etc.?
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Greg Lone
\r?\n> Langley B.C.
\r?\n> Canada
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
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