>And speaking of wacky, what's up with that big ol' manhole cover in the top
>of the downtube lug? I suppose it is for lubing the lower headset race, but
>why's it so big? The little grease fitting on the back of the headtube on
>so many Italian and English bikes does the job with so much less metal and
>extra fabrication complexity.
considering that grease fittings were used on other french bikes that ive seen, im almost tempted to say oil port? looks a lot like the oil hole cover on a sturmey archer hub, and it would give you the ability to dump oil from that point to either the lower headset race, and to the bb as well...
tell me if you think im off my rocker, but stranger things have happened in the world of bike design...
ive seen bikes before that have used the frame tubes as oil reservoirs...
-joel
--
joel metz : magpie@messengers.org : http://www.blackbirdsf.org/
bike messengers worldwide : ifbma : http://www.messengers.org/
po box 191443 san francisco ca 94119-1443 usa
==
i know what innocence looks like - and it wasn't there,
after she got that bicycle...