Hilary,
Thanks for the post on the widespread use of aluminum parts before WW II. I have a minor clarification to add:
AVA aluminum bars were used by several competitors in the 1934 technical trials (bike descriptions in La Pedale Touristique 12/26/1936, quoted Vintage Bicycle Quarterly vo. 1, No. 4, p. 4 and 5). So they must have been available then already. The same issue of VBQ shows an aluminum AVA stem on a 1936 bike.
As far as aluminum parts go, after 1945, pretty much every top-class French cyclotouring bike was equipped aluminum handlebars, seatpost, cranks, rims, fenders and often stem (unless it was a fillet-brazed or lugged tubular steel stem like those of Singer et al.). That is why the cyclotouring bikes of the time were as light or lighter than most racing bikes, despite featuring fenders, racks, lights and fat tires.
The "Concours Dural" (technical trials sponsored by the aluminum manufacturers trade association) did much to prove the durability of these lightweight parts. It appears only the racers remained sceptical, figuring that if something held up for the "weak" cyclotourists, it wouldn't necessarily do so for them. Notwithstanding that some of these "cyclotourists" climbed the passes in the Alps as fast or faster than the pros...
Jan Heine, Seattle
>AVA also offered
>aluminium bars and stems I think from c1937 onwards.
>
>Hilary Stone, Bristol, England