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I guess that from about 1952 on nearly every pro would have chosen a Campag Gran Sport
Strangely not.
http://www.disraeligears.co.uk/Site/Derailleurs_-_Tour_de_France_winners.html
I was surprised the Gran Sport was used as early as ‘51 to win The Tour, equally the push rod Simplex derailleurs carried on being used until the early 60s.Amazingly Suntour invented the Slant Parallelogram Derailleur in ‘64 (!) - easily the best derailleurs for years - no pro teams used them AFAIK.
I’m intrigued to find out how all this kit works too, the bits I’ve got to play with are all in new or excellent condition so if they fail to shift and I can eliminate user error and incorrect set up they might just be a bit shit.
I’ve got a TDC 14/24 freewheel, so I’ll see how that works, square teeth, Brampton chain
Ker-Klunk.
absurdbird-
I guess that from about 1952 on nearly every pro would have chosen a Campag Gran Sport
Strangely not.
I don't think you read my post quite carefully enough. My point was that the pros would have chosen Campag if they could have done, but they were committed by their contracts to use whatever rubbish their sponsor chose. Nationalism was a strong factor, so if you were French you would have a huge struggle to use non French kit. If you look at that list you will see how effective this was before the Japanese kit arrived.
One notable exception was Coppi, who caused a big stir in 1949 by insisting on using Simplex for the 1949 TdF, which he won. Tullio was very annoyed with him because he thought Coppi should use his Cambio Corsa which Bartali had won with the previous year - of course, Coppi did not have the same power of prayer behind him that Bartali had enjoyed!
clubman
If you can find a 26 sprocket I'll certainly be interested to hear how well it works.
I find these old derailleurs intriguing, I suppose because they were heavily advertised but didn't really work very well and yet big races were won using them. I guess that from about 1952 on nearly every pro would have chosen a Campag Gran Sport, but of course they didn't get to choose their kit ( they still don't!)
Johnny Pound (see Gillott thread) told me that he chose to use a Huret when he was in Belgium in the early fifties because he thought it was more 'robust' (his word) than a Simplex. They both look equally flimsy to me, but Mr. Pound generally knows what he's talking about.
Anyway, if I had unlimited energy and (now, it seems) money, I'd love to experiment with these old mechs to see how well I could get them to work.