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@clubman
Ready to ride.
It will need a bit of fine tuning - even though I'm used to old frames, the front wheel seems a long way out in front and it feels a bit odd when riding out of the saddle. As you can see it was intended for 27's so it's a bit gappy.
The rear mech actually works suprisingly well, but then I'm not asking it to do anything specially difficult like dealing with very wide ratios. It was more difficult to set up than a parallelogram mech, and it is sensitive to the length of the chain - if the jockey wheel cage is too upright (ie chain too long) it won't go onto the bottom sprocket. The cable adjuster on the modern downtube cable stop proved to be useful for fine tuning.
As I see it, there are two major disadvantages with this gear: First, since there are no stops on the travel of the jockey cage it will only work on the size of block it is intended for. It could not cope with a six, whereas its competitor, the Campag 'Gran Sport' will cope with seven sprockets, or just four if that's what you want. Secondly it's a bit fragile and is liable to get bent if the bike falls on its right hand side, with disastrous consequences next time you try to use the bottom sprocket.
There are two more pictures to follow.
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