Robert Aguirre asked:
I'm hoping to find some sage advice here--not yet disappointed!--about French hubs for my retro-vintage touring bike I'm building. On the advice of this list, I've already procured a Stronglight crankset, a set of Simplex derailleurs, Mafac brakes and levers, and now am pondering hubs. I slso have a nice set of Mavic Module E clinchers awaiting a build. This is my first foray into the French parts, so my only point of comparison is Campy high flange, which I love.
Which French hubs will give me comparable performance and longevity: Maillard, Atom, Normandy, Maxi-Car, others?
And Mike Kone responded:
Maxi-Car is the way to go - great sealed mechanism and they last forever.
That said, the urge by many to "keep a bike all French" is an American thing and not a French thing. Both Rene Herse as well as the Alex Singer shop used lots of Campagnolo from the 1960's on. Roland Csuka, the man with the torch at the Singer shop for many years, was a Campy hub fan. That said, Campy hubs were typically used on road/sport bikes. Machines for longer Brevet/true touring would use MaxiCar due to their superior sealing.
I guess the main point is that I wouldn't loose much sleep if the use of Campy hubs makes your life easier. But for longer trips where riding in the wet is likely, and regular purging of a Campy NR hub is not practical, then I'd say be patient and wait for the Maxi-car hubs. **************** I think that the MaxiCar is lovely, but have never owned a set. But let me take another perspective: Among "conventional" (non-cartridge bearing) hubs, the Campy record is noteworthy for cones (and cups?) that were ground to a finished surface, not cut with a lathe-like tool. this, and apparently excellent surface hardness, gave wonderful longevity. The axles and cones also had nice tolerances. Neither was true of the run-of-the-mill French hubs, though I might remember ground cones on some Normandy Competition (not sure). I don't think that the lower level Campy hubs had the great cones, either. But, I could be wrong.
And, let's close with a revolutionary thought: If the bike is as recent as the early 1970s, why not do as the French did themselves (if I recall correctly), and consider early Phil hubs for a real touring bike? Or was this only done for framesets that past through Cupertino and were blessed by Spence Wolf himself?
harvey sachs
mcLean va usa