At 3:06 PM -0800 11/24/09, Andy Newlands wrote:
>Hi Jan,
>Interesting post about Reynolds tubing. What was the gauge of the
>3/10mm. tube you talked about? Was it 0.3mm somewhere along the
>length of the tube?
Like the early 753, "3/10 mm" was supposed to have 0.3 mm thick walls in the center of the tube. I assume 0.6 mm at the ends... In the old days, it was used for a few superlight randonneur bikes, for the bikes at the technical trials, and later for time trial bikes of riders like Anquetil and Ocana.
Then there was "5/10 mm," also listed as "Competition," which was known elsewhere as 531C, and measures 0.8-0.55-0.8 mm.
"7/10 mm" usually is known as "Super Tourist" in the English-speaking world. 1.0-0.7-1.0 mm.
Those designations were the official ones in France - I have seen ads for "Reynolds 531 Competition 5/10 mm" tubing.
Of course, the individual tubes vary a bit in their gauges, as Reynolds usually had lighter gauges on top tubes than on down tubes. But you know all that...
As a builder, how consistent are tubing gauges anyhow? Ernest Csuka of Cycles Alex Singer told me that Reynolds tubing in the same nominal gauges was lighter in 30 years ago than today.
Back to stickers, at some point in the early 1970s, the "531" lettering was red for the "5/10" tubing. All other bikes I have seen had green lettering on the stickers, no matter the tubing gauge. (Of course, it's possible that builders didn't put the "correct" sticker on each bike, after all, the sticker gets applied long after the tubes are taken from the box to build the bike, as the last thing after paint and assembly.)
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
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