Well, I measured the Duravia, which looks identical to these photos posted by Alex (the last two bikes shown):
http://www.blackbirdsf.org/
Eyeballing the brake reach with a 700C rim with no tire was deceptive. The brake reach is actually 65mm front and 57 mm rear, long by modern standards, but a lot of 60's and even 70's brakes can cover this. Now the question is, what brakes would be period correct? I discovered stamped on the (interestingly, vertical) rear DO the number 54 181 with a gap after the 54. I highly suspect this means the frame is 1954, either the 181st made that year or perhaps made on 18 Jan, 1954. So what brakes were available in 1954? I have a box full of old Mafac Dural Forge's that will fit and will clean up pretty well. When were the Dural Forges introduced?
Also, I'm fairly clueless about the old chainstay-mounted RD's. This frame actually has the RD mounting plate extending forward from the DO rather than downward from the chainstay, but would seem to take the RD type typically mounted to the chainstay. There seem to have been several different types of mounts for chainstay RD's. The one on this frame is like one just visible on the last bike posted by Alex, a flat vertical plate with two holes drilled at the same height fairly close together. On another bike (not the Duravia) in Alex's photos, there is a Simplex RD that would seem to fit the mount on the Duravia. But there are also a couple of different RDs among the photos that seem to fit, but one can't make out the markings. So what are the RD options and are there any one could hope to obtain at a sane price? From my limited knowledge of this era I believe many of the Cyclo RD's required two cables, but some of the Simplex models seem to use only one cable. What was the purpose of a second cable? How much bigger hassle are the two-cable RD's to install and adjust?
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Texas, USA