Road Frames c.1975-85.. Un-vague us!

So they did DSH.. and I found some pretty incontrovertible photographic evidence:
[url]
http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g2_itemId=24359[/url]
The first year for brazed lever bosses, and the last year for Mafac centre-pulls- probably lovely braze-on centre pulls, too..?

Thanks..

Don't forget that team bikes were, at least so some claim, a year ahead of the commercial version in terms of specification. So the 1979 PY10 still has centre pulls.

An exhaustive thread here

http://veloretrocourse.proboards.com/th ... -py?page=3


Even if you don't speech French enough photos and catalogue shots to be illuminating.

Yeah thanks DSH- I've yet to 'read' the whole thread, and my French is pretty basic, but that is illuminating!

I guess Peugeot were a special case during this period within the continental pro peloton, being almost unique among prominent trade teams- French, Italian, Belgian, Spanish, Dutch/British- in not being on the Campagnolo 'roster'. I've no idea whether Campagnolo literally sponsored the dozen-odd competing trade teams that featured that cursive Campagnolo script on their jerseys just underneath the main sponsor? The only other prominent mid-late seventies team that was beyond the Campag. orbit that I can think of was Super-Ser, a '75-'76(?) Spanish outfit using Zeus components (including centre-pulls one year.) So now I am wondering if the brazed-on gear levers phenomenon might have dispersed outwards from Peugeot to the other French trade teams during the late '70s and thence to the Italian teams?

Also instructive from perusing that thread is the information that, around 1974-5, just like Raleigh, and on a smaller scale, Holdsworth in the UK, Peugeot found it convenient to set up a 'custom shop' outside the mass-production facilities to hand-build top-level racing frames for the trade team(s) and other discerning customers. It is more or less an open secret that before (and possibly even after) the mass producers did this, some pro riders would simply employ their favoured small independent frame builder to build them a custom frame, and get it sprayed and decaled so as to be indistinguishable from their 'team issue'.

Also interesting about the three distinct 'training', 'road', and 'time-trial' bikes that Peugeot pros would be issued with, and the tube specifications for each..

My 1964 Allin Belgique and 1960s Roberts have braze on gearlever bosses, and as mentioned in an earlier post many 1950s cycles had braze on bosses for a Cyclo (or similiar) lever. My 1975 Bill Philbrook tourer has direct mount (i.e braze ons) Mafac Racer brakes.

Example, if you spoke to someone like Dick Broderick (Holdsworth team) he'll tell you that they thought braze-ons were bad form. Bill Philbrook for example, like Peter Cobb (Allin), would only mount braze on bottle cage bosses non-invasively (i.e without drilling the tube).

Rk.

N.B you've all done some research and found libraries useful !

You are a card, roadking..!

Here is some 'research' for you:

context,n, the parts of a discourse or treatise which precede and follow a special passage and fix its true meaning: associated surroundings, setting.-
Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary.

Sincere thanks for your anecdotes. The Philbrook/Cobb stance on bottle cage bosses makes perfect sense to me., but I do like brazed on Mafacs- aesthetically, and theoretically in practice, because I've never tried them. Have you built up that Philbrook and taken it for a spin yet?

Yes.

Rk.

Thanks roadking- 'the very soul of wit'. Since your Allin has been mentioned three times in this thread, I thought to provide a link to it, but I'm not so sure that it is good squinternet etiquette for me to do so? I returned for another gander at your Philbrook too. I have the germ of a five-star anorak-esque question about it, and, if that germ reaches the sapling stage I might bump that thread to ask it, although I admit I am scared to, since your reply to bduc was even more soulful than your last reply to me..

I think on the same page is JSH's flawlessly presented Gios- also worth a link or bump or gander. We are so inured to the BLUE Gios that our instinctive first thought on seeing that picture is: "Wtf? My eyes have gone into reverse polarity!"

What about my Campagnolo brakes query? I would think that is a question you could answer in your sleep, or even in a coma? Is this part of the "Campagnolo Spoken Here" phenomenon? Do I have to demonstrate that I spent three grand (inflation-adjusted to the year of your choice) in a bike shop before someone cuts the chord on Torqueless, twisting in the wind?

In the meantime, en-route back to vaguery, as warned by hamster in the first reply, here is my revised timeline:

1. Brazed on bottle cage bosses. (1975-possibly earlier?)
2. Piccolo brakes. (1974 or 1975?)
3. Short Campag. dropouts, possibly with portacatena holes, as opposed to the old 'long' Campag. dropouts. (1977?)
4. Rear brake bridge and fork crown counterbored to accept Allen key brakes. (1978?)
5. Brazed on rear brake cable tunnels on the top tube as opposed to the old three chromed clips. (1973-Gios?)(1980?)
5. Brazed on gear lever bosses. (1973-Gios?)(1978-Peugeot)(1980-Gios)
6. Under the bracket gear cable runs as opposed to over the bracket. (1981? poss. as early as '79)
7. Additional seat tube bottle cage bosses (1969-Faema? photo in either: le Tour de France et les Alpes, or La Grande Histoire Du Tour De France)(1983?)
8. Brazed on front mech. bracket. (1983?)
9. 130mm rear end spacing for seven speed block (1984?)

Thanks to all contributors so far. Further contributions/anachronistic anomalies/rule-proving exceptions welcome..

Formally Gios Super Records were braze on gear lever bosses and braze on brake cable guides from 1973.

I say formally as RdV won Mila- San Remo in 1973 on a bike with clip on cable guides.

Thanks DSH, Sorry, I put the wrong year- '1974-75' in the timeline- I will now edit it to '1973'. If I get to see some photographic evidence I will remove the question-mark.

Well, is it just Gios, or does it begin to look like the early-mid seventies peloton was a more braze-on-diverse environment than popular imagination (or at least my imagination) would suggest? It occurs to me as a possibility that Campagnolo-sponsored (as an overlapping but distinct category to Campagnolo-using) teams were contractually obliged to use the whole band-on gruppo, whereas 'using' teams had a freer hand? Campagnolo (correct me if I am wrong) were not producing bottle-cages or the bands that attached them, so in that area there might have been more scope for variation.