>From: Morgan Fletcher <morgan@hahaha.org>
>Date: 30 Dec 2002 12:06:15 -0800
>Subject: [CR]RGF?
<snip>
>
>The top of the bottom bracket shell has a marking that is a horizontal
>oval containing the letters "RGF". Is that a marking of the maker of
>the lug, or the builder? Do you know anything about it?
>
This is one of the questions that make regular reappearances on CR. Here are snippets from the thread in Dec. 1999. I think the next reappearing thread will be......Favorit bikes :)
Happy New Year to all! Hey Paulie! Hey Rick C.! And Listmeister Dale! Jump, jump, wave, wave!
Chee-Heng Yeong Providence, R.I.
>
At 5:56 PM -0500 12/3/1999, hanuman wrote:
>classicrendezvous
>
>There have been a few questions about what the RGF in an oval stands for.
>My frame built in 1980 also has an RGF bottom bracket and I have finally
>been able to get in touch with the frame builder, Jay Downing.
>
>It's a pressed steel BB, made by GARGETTE FRERES, the "R" he thinks stands
>for "Racord" (spelling, word?) which could be "bottom bracket " in French.
>Can anyone verify? Monsieur Sheldon?
>
>"Raccord", (m.) is the French word for "lug", and also is used for a pump
>head.
>
>The usual term for a bottom bracket shell specifically is "boitier."
>
>This and many other French bicycling terms may be found in my
>French/English/Anglais/Français Bicycle Dictionary/Vélo Dicctionaire
>at:
>
> http://www.sheldonbrown.com/
> http://www.sheldonbrown.com/
>
>Sheldon "Francophile" Brown
>Newtonville, Massachusetts
>
>
>(From Jerry Moos)
>Wow, these BB's were a lot more widely used than I thought - there is one
>on the circa 1975 >Allegro I just bought.
>
>
>(From Chuck Schmidt)
>I think they go back at least as far as the late 1940s, probably to the
>mid thirties?
>
>
>(From Kevin Gosney)
>RGF certainly was a widely used bottom bracket shell. I had a 1980 "Ron
Kit" purchased from Dennis Stone at Stone's Cyclery in Alameda, CA.
Beautiful black frame that met an untimely death when crushed between mother
earth and a BMW 2002, but that's another sad story. Weep not for me, as the