This talk of old French aluminum bikes reminds me that I bought an AL French frameset several years ago. It is still boxed from my move to Big Spring in October 2005. I believe the brand is DurAvion, or some such, and the logo seemed to suggest an aircraft connection as does the name. Can't remember if the tubes are round or some other shape. Of course much of the early French bike AL technology was a spinoff of the aviation industry. My frameset looked to be 50's or very early 60's.
Anyone know anything about this marque? Is it worth digging through the boxes in storage to move this higher on the project list?
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Texas, USA
> From: Edward Albert <ealbert01@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [CR] Was: Caminade rarity? Now: Prewar Stronglight 49D IDing
> To: "Jan Heine" <heine94@earthlink.net>
> Cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2009, 12:02 PM
> FYI,
> I feel like I am being picked clean like a dog's
> bone. But that is the
> nature of the beast.
> Anyway, I found a copy of a Caminargent catalog on Joel
> Metz' site. A
> British one dating to 1936. Take a close look at the
> crankset and blow the
> PDF file up a bit. Looks like points to me and just like
> on the one I now
> own. IMHO
> http://www.blackbirdsf.org/
>
> Edward Albert
> Chappaqua, New York, U.S.A.
>
> On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 9:50 AM, Jan Heine
> <heine94@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > In the hopes of advancing the dialogue on dating the
> Stronglight 49D
> >> crank through it's unparalleled history
> I've uploaded a collection of
> >> photos that will hopefully illustrate most if not
> all of the general
> >> variants that can be seen and perhaps referenced
> to provide examples
> >> useful to this end.
> >>
> >> http://picasaweb.google.com/
> >>
> >>
> > None of the cranks on your list appear to be pre-war,
> from my quick glance.
> > Compare to the LEFT crank of the bike in the auction.
> (The right crank is a
> > post-war model - I just noticed that now.)
> >
> > ebay 370196769044
> >
> > The 49D is to me the ultimate single component
> spanning the on-topic
> >> era of the CR list. In terms of longevity,
> performance and utility, I
> >> can think of nothing that comes even remotely
> close. First built in
> >> the 1930s and still almost fully competitive with
> the most advanced
> >> current gear. If you told the people that built
> the first example that
> >> their design wouldn't be significantly
> bettered in the following 70
> >> years, I wonder what they'd have thought?
> >>
> >
> > That is a good question. Who were the engineers? How
> did they manage to get
> > it so right, on the first try? There is one other
> product that compares, but
> > never had the success of the Stronglight: the Nivex
> rear derailleur. The
> > first ads from 1938 or so talk about constant chain
> gap as a key toward
> > consistent shifting. That reads like something
> straight out of Berto's
> > "Dancing Chain" in the chapter "How to
> design a well-shifting derailleur."
> > Other makers took decades to figure this out, and
> Campagnolo's early Syncro
> > shifting would not have been doomed if they had
> understood this in the
> > 1980s.
> >
> > Jan Heine
> > Editor
> > Bicycle Quarterly
> > 140 Lakeside Ave #C
> > Seattle WA 98122
> > http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com
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> > Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> >
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> >
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