Tevano Cranks & BB

Until a few weeks ago I'd never heard of them. Almost identical to Super Record, nicely made etc. Made by TA by all accounts. Question is - rarity - a few examples on ebay, one in particular at a ridiculous price. Are these particularly rare or just not particularly sought after?

I can just remember these coming over so must have been 1978-1979. They had to compete with Campag, Sakae Ringyo, Sugino Mighty, Gipiemme, Ofmega, Gian Roberts and Omas Big Sliding which all looked like Campag (well I guess Campag would)

I guess it's the rarity rather than anything outstanding on the quality front........

Shaun

Re:

I had the below pair a few years ago. The quality was as good as Campagnolo but I felt it was a shame they felt they had to copy the NR versions so exactly.

Shaun - that's quite a list of competitors for a small share of the market. I assume the Tevano brand was short lived, and aimed at those who couldn't afford Campagnolo? Was Tevano a cheap alternative or did they command a reasonable price at the cash register?

Agentorange - I've just got hold of some with matching BB, in almost as new condition, and i'm impressed by them. Agreed its a shame they are such a direct copy, but I guess that was the idea of putting them into production.

Glad you like them

The marketing strategy back in the 70's seemed to be very domestic and each country seemed to buy all their own stuff......the French bought French stuff in their sizes and the Italians bought Italian stuff with their thread sizes etc.

The Brits had "Birmetals" so we bought what we liked and used a lot of hand me down stuff. Campag was king, Shmano had Dura Ace and 600 so had both ends of the market covered and the importers (Ron Kit, RJ Chicken, IRB etc) bought in all sorts of other stuff which was pretty peripheral.

I guess TA made the Tevano for the French market to get sales from Campag......anything that came our way would have been a trickle, Probably from Ron Kit.

The biggest other sellers were Sugino Maxy / Apex as they were a replacement for steel and SR who on a quality basis could match campag and Shimano..

The real fly in the ointment were SunTour......blimey they had some nice stuff and really should have taken a big slice of the market (lightweight and run of the mill) but themanufacturers, importers, reps and the kit were all over the shop If only they had their time again SunTour would be up their with CAmpag and Shimano on modern bikes....

Shaun

Re:

That makes a lot of sense, and with the import numbers being small I assume that only a small number of shops would stock the less known makers. And if the number of importers was equally as small I can see why Campag / Shimano held the common ground. Did Ron Kit et al. have the lions share of the import market or where they a bit more daring in their buying philosophy?

Interesting that you mention Suntour - I'm currently on the hunt for a rear mech (Cyclone MK11) as the bike that came with the Tevano cranks has a Cyclone front mech - really nice, superb bit of kit. Add the Dia Compe AGC brakes / levers it's a real mish mash of parts, but for once I like the idea of not having a full matching group.

I'm also onto Ofmega at the moment, got 75% of the Mistral group, again lovely stuff and perhaps underrated?

FINNEY1973":xgws62v9 said:

Agentorange - I've just got hold of some with matching BB, in almost as new condition, and i'm impressed by them. Agreed its a shame they are such a direct copy, but I guess that was the idea of putting them into production.

Click to expand...

I still have the screw in Tevano dust caps if you want them. PM me if interested, postage only.

Ron Kitching were the UK distributors for all TA stuff including the Tevano brand. I have a 1984 RonKit catalogue with all the Tevano details, I'll find it and post some info.(EDIT - see below!)

I wouldn't worry about not having a 'matching groupset', very few of us did BITD. At least the combination you're mentioning seems to be all RonKit brands!

Re:

That's excellent OldNed, thanks for posting. Quite surprised by the original prices, not exactly cheap.

Agreed, once I source the Cyclone 11 rear mech I will be leaving as is. Quite an eclectic mix of components. The bits that stick out are the Shimano 600 Tricolor rear mech & DT levers - somehow they don't look or feel obscure enough (if that's the right word?).

PM incoming AgentOrange - that would be great if I could get those covers from you.

Re:

On our side of the channel, the Tevano crankset is also pretty rare
but I would say not very much sought after too :idea:
Possibly just because of its rarity and not really related to other components.

It is actually amusing to see that in the 70's no french company managed to manufacture a whole groupset and as Old Ned said , it was not really a wish of racers to have every part coming from the same company and I believe not even campgnolo offered its group as a whole ?

Now the fad is more towards full "groupsets". So Mavic in the 80's was really the only french company to go and succeed on that strategy ( even if some parts were actually tagged but subcontracted to other companies such as Modolo for the brakes)


On most upmarket roadracing french machines of the time in the 70's , if you did not find the campa nuovo record group, you would see mostly Stronglight cranksets coupled either with Simplex SLJ mechs or Huret Jubilee stuff.
Brakes tended to be Mafac Racers until quite late often even on top of the range - remember the Peugeot of Thevenet :idea: - then superseded by CLB light brakes rather than Mafac single pivot brakes

Huret is actually the only company that tried to emulate a group with its own huret tag in the 70's but clearly did not succeed. Probably because it was certainly expensive.
The crankset was actually buit by Nervar, the brakes by CLB, the hubs were rebadged high flange Alpin
(I am in the process of building a full french machine as light as possible from the 70's ) and still hesitates on the group to put on - its going to be either this huret group or a mix of french stuff but the Tevano crankset was not in my mind as it is pretty rare to see it on french machines of that time.

But as Shaun said , Tevano was probably more an attempt to grab sales if you wanted the campa look ( but not a downmarket repro as the price tag showed and TA never sold cheaply its stuff :roll: ) but also enter the roadracing segment
as, strangely enough, TA was very much regarded in the "cyclotourisme" segment so all upmarket randonneuses of that time had to have a TA and Stronglight was considered a lesser alternative but on racing machines, you will hardly see a TA crankset. The Tevano was also probably an attempt to gain a foothold in that segment; surfing on the "campa wave" :idea:

Classic lightweights mentions 1979 as the first year of production :idea:

Would be interesting to see the price differences between these choices at that time ???

Ned that would be ace if you could show what the catalog says for other cranksets such as the "cyclo" TAs or the Campa SR, the Stronglights ?

here you'll find a few pics and docs about the Tevano crankset
http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/tevano/Interesting

it is amusing because I just bought a bike with Supervitus 971 framekit, CLB Professional light brakes , a tevano crankset, and wheels on high flange Pelissier 2000 hubs. So an example of the mix of different companies but with this rare tevano crankset :idea:

More info edited
French specialists wonder also where the name comes from !
it is quite possible or even probable that it could be a italianized anagram of 'Navet' with an O at the end :idea:
as a Monsieur "Navet" was actually the founder of Specialités TA in 1947 ( by the way - Herse crankset were apparently subcontracted to them ) :idea: