Yet Another Purple One - 70’s Carlton Criterium

[ibbz]

I was always a ten B&H and a pack of small reds man

With some Ribena, always ribena to go with it !!

 

[LondonClassic]

'They're for my mum.'

 

[Tobias Rodriguez]

There’s a little update to share with you. My plan was to reinstate the original cottered crank set, until tonight. I had looked at the build thread by Ibbz on his Criterium (very nice) when I purchased mine. I too had toyed with the idea of using a 3 arm alloy crank set but ruled it out. Then on an eBay browse, a cheap 70’s 3 armed Nervar popped up. It got me thinking about using an alloy square taper on the Criterium again. So I had a look on Velobase to see if the Nervar has an ISO taper as I thought it would. To my surprise this model has a JIS taper, which is perfect because the bottom bracket on the bike has a Tange spindle fitted to run the Sugino GT crank set. Then I noticed an offer from the seller, I thought about for 5 minutes, then went for it. A little work will be needed but if the blue in the flutes is a half decent match with the rings on the frame, it might get tidied up and used as is instead of stripping it.
The 3 arm TA crank set does look sleeker than the Nervar, and better quality most likely. However, I think the Nervar has more of the look of the originals, the way the chainrings are fitted to the rear of the arms, rather than flush.