Unusual Rear Mech.

Old Ned

Old School Grand Master
Mark in my LBS (an RB member but not very actively!) owns my LBS and he had this rear mech brought in last week. The owner wanted to fit it to a modern(ish) bike but Mark said it wouldn't work. The guy then said he would skip it so Mark, being a sensible lad, said he would have it. He showed it to me this morning and I brought it home to photograph. I can't find any info on Google and it isn't on Disraeli Gears so I've sent the photos there also.

Does anyone here know anything about the Guizzardi Bologna brand? Keithglos, how about you??

It is unusual for a 'spring' mech in that it is top normal. The cable pulls the curved arm (which is pivoted on the body between the 2 adjusting screws) up which makes the arm rub against the cage and pushes it inwards against the force of the spring. A totally different concept to the usual Simplex, Huret, Benelux etc. spring mech. The main body is a nicely made aluminium casting. It also looks as if it has never been fitted to a bike before but sadly the top fixing bolt is missing. However, I reckon one could be turned up relatively easily.
 

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Paul, never seen one before, but I read it as Guzzano Bologna, which doesn't help. Claims a patent (for what?) but has no patent number to help. Looks as if it should go on a campagnolo compatible end?

If he had pivotted the cage lower rather than through the top roller it might have improved.

Keith
 
I would guess the patent could be for the steel rod (curved bar)simply pushing the pulley wheel cage inwards when the cable gets pulled , I would assume there is some telescoping device inside that coiled up spring and the spring is just for retraction purposes.
 
As a collector of deraileur gears Im finding this thread fascinating. I had assumed that this mech was really quite old but then noticed the jockey wheels and allen bolt look quite modern. The jockey cage looks like it is home made. I wonder if this is a homemade mech? Can the patent be searched for?
 
I've had a message from Mike at Disraeli Gears and he says he has an example of one of these but it is in a far worse condition than this one. He also has a friend who has one in a similar state. He has come up with an Italian Patent for a company with the same name for a bicycle rear gear change (can't be definite it is the same one though - but it sounds suspiciously like it) which is dated 1971 - 1973! Possibly then a LOT younger than I had anticipated.

There is a tension spring around the cage 'support' which acts as a resistance to the 'push' of the curved rod and returns it to normal when cable tension is reduced. I suppose the overall concept is quite simple really - but why bother when the parallelogram design works so well and has become the industry standard. A bit like trying to re-invent the wheel.
 
Old Ned":cog1cu9x said:
I've had a message from Mike at Disraeli Gears and he says he has an example of one of these but it is in a far worse condition than this one. He also has a friend who has one in a similar state. He has come up with an Italian Patent for a company with the same name for a bicycle rear gear change (can't be definite it is the same one though - but it sounds suspiciously like it) which is dated 1971 - 1973! Possibly then a LOT younger than I had anticipated.

There is a tension spring around the cage 'support' which acts as a resistance to the 'push' of the curved rod and returns it to normal when cable tension is reduced. I suppose the overall concept is quite simple really - but why bother when the parallelogram design works so well and has become the industry standard. A bit like trying to re-invent the wheel.

Ned,

Just saw this now and the casting marks look very much like late 60's or 1970's. I also suspect that the derailleur is not fully original and that the one allen key cage fixation bolt is subsequent to the rest of the derailleur. I did a search on the patent registry Espacenet.com and couldn't come up with anything, but that can occur when a patent is allowed to lapse prematurely or simply hasn't been digitized.
 
Citoyen du monde":car4hikk said:
Old Ned":car4hikk said:
I've had a message from Mike at Disraeli Gears and he says he has an example of one of these but it is in a far worse condition than this one. He also has a friend who has one in a similar state. He has come up with an Italian Patent for a company with the same name for a bicycle rear gear change (can't be definite it is the same one though - but it sounds suspiciously like it) which is dated 1971 - 1973! Possibly then a LOT younger than I had anticipated.

There is a tension spring around the cage 'support' which acts as a resistance to the 'push' of the curved rod and returns it to normal when cable tension is reduced. I suppose the overall concept is quite simple really - but why bother when the parallelogram design works so well and has become the industry standard. A bit like trying to re-invent the wheel.

Ned,

Just saw this now and the casting marks look very much like late 60's or 1970's. I also suspect that the derailleur is not fully original and that the one allen key cage fixation bolt is subsequent to the rest of the derailleur. I did a search on the patent registry Espacenet.com and couldn't come up with anything, but that can occur when a patent is allowed to lapse prematurely or simply hasn't been digitized.

I see where you're going with the allen key jockey wheel fixing but the mech looks as if it has never been used at all so why should the original bolt be missing? I'd love to know how it came into the customer's possession so I'll have to ask Mark at the shop to ask him if he calls in again. From what Mark has said about him I doubt if he would have fitted a replacement.

Here is a copy of the Italian patent Mike found (on Espacenet as it happens!)-
 

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Old Ned":194m7gkq said:
I see where you're going with the allen key jockey wheel fixing but the mech looks as if it has never been used at all so why should the original bolt be missing? I'd love to know how it came into the customer's possession so I'll have to ask Mark at the shop to ask him if he calls in again. From what Mark has said about him I doubt if he would have fitted a replacement.

Here is a copy of the Italian patent Mike found (on Espacenet as it happens!)-

Well, don't I have egg on my face now. I use Espacenet for work almost every week and I did not find the patent. I had tried various potential spellings of the last name of the inventor too. I suppose I made a typo when writing out the name. With these search pages, it is garbage out if you feed garbage in :cool:. Unfortunately the patent has not been fully digitized so it is not possible to read the claims online and see the mosaics. It would be interesting to know precisely what they expected to accomplish with the derailleur. From the description it might be that the same derailleur was meant to be used both as a front and rear derailleur as the word "Cambio" in Italian is generally used to describe a rear mech and "deragliatore" is generally used to describe a front mech. If you do get a copy of the original patent document which is exclusively in Italian, I would be more than happy to give you a quick translation.
 
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