I have the GB version of the Synchrons, no doubt produced under license from Altenberger, on an early 70's Raleigh Super Tourer. With Mathauser pads they work very well indeed. I'm surprised they weren't more popular In The Day, and that dual pivot SP's only caught on more than a decade later.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
> From: Don Wilson <dcwilson3@yahoo.com>
\r?\n> Subject: [CR] In praise of low end Raleighs...
\r?\n> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
\r?\n> Date: Wednesday, September 9, 2009, 7:42 PM
\r?\n> Bought an intact apparently
\r?\n> early 70s gas pipe Raleigh Record (blue with black head
\r?\n> tube) with Allvit derailers, five cogs, Sturmey steel rims
\r?\n> and hubs, cottered steel crankset, Milremo red-wing stem,
\r?\n> Altenberger Synchron calipers and levers, wing nuts on the
\r?\n> hub, and Bluemels Tour de France mud guards. Alas the Wright
\r?\n> is gone. S/N is 92206 stamped across top of seat cluster
\r?\n> lug, and there's an X stamped on the underside of the bottom
\r?\n> bracket. S/N corresponds with absolutely nothing on
\r?\n> Sheldon's Raleigh SN site.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> My praise is: While this has to be one of most slip shod
\r?\n> jobs of welding I have ever seen on any bike, this old bike
\r?\n> rides amazingly well even after all these years. It has been
\r?\n> ridden long and hard and still the hubs roll true and with
\r?\n> low friction. This was a bike for the real world, where you
\r?\n> could beat it to death over irregular pavement, down paths,
\r?\n> leave it in coastal fogs and salt air to rust without
\r?\n> compromise, and so on. It feels solid as a rock and yet it
\r?\n> displaces pavement irregularities better than my unsuspended
\r?\n> mountain bike cum city bike with big tires. It is just very
\r?\n> strange to ride a bike that is so well designed and which
\r?\n> uses very robust materials, but which is also built with the
\r?\n> welder's equivalent of an ugly stick.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Questions:
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Alternberger Synchrons--are they any good if I go to the
\r?\n> trouble of putting some new rubber pads on them?
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Milremo Red Wing stem--is it safe, or does it have a
\r?\n> history of failures like some the dread French stems?
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Bluemels Tour de France mudguards--are they metal, or
\r?\n> aluminum--looks like aluminum because no rust--what to
\r?\n> polish them with?
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Don Wilson
\r?\n> Bandon, OR/Los Olivos CA USA