The French Thread

Thanks for posting those pics of the Herse, I don't know how to do such computertrickery.

Re. brazed on centrepulls

You can braze on any centrepull afaik. I've read that the B/O bosses for Mafac cantis can be adapted to work but it's a frame builder job and one who knows what they're doing.
I spoke to Barry Witcomb about C/P brazed on bosses years ago and he'd never seen it done, but he was willing to have a go. I don't think any UK builders except maybe Jack Taylor did it.
I've seen a really beautiful Italian pure race bike from the early 60s with them so it wasn't just the French cyclotourists.
Mafac racers are excellent brakes, set up right with modern pads and cables they're equal to a dual pivot and piss on single pivots. When Campag took a step back and (re) introduced the single pivot side pull in the late 60s allmost all pro bikes had Mafac centrepulls.
They're forged ally and they made several million of them so you can get them cheap and get parts, brazing them on makes them very light because you lose the 'bridge' and stiff because the pivots are much closer to the fork crown and seat stay bridge you don't get the flex you get with cantis (built in brake booster).
Modern brake design is going back to the principles of C/P brakes (disk brakes aside) moving 2 pivots closer to the rim and lengthening the lever arms, this is what dual pivots do but they're heavy ( mostly) and need to be set close to the rim.
The drawbacks with the Mafacs are brake squeal as there's no built in toe-in and slightly fiddly set up. Paul do a Cnc'd C/P which you can get a braze on for, they dont work with Mafac or Dia Comp and they're heavier and not forged and expensive but the faux retro crowd like them.
I think Mafacs look fucking cool.