Re: [CR]"Universal Extra" Brakes & Cinelli Dating

(Example: Production Builders:Peugeot)

From: "Charlie Young" <youngc@netreach.net>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: Re: [CR]"Universal Extra" Brakes & Cinelli Dating
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 16:22:09 -0400

First: Chuck, you are the best archive searcher among us!

Second: I wonder how many agree with the statement excerpted from your original post below regarding the quality of the Universal brakes. I have several sets of Universal Mod. 77 brakes and don't find them to be any less capable than the Campagnolo Record brakes of the period. What period do you (or the component buyers of the time) consider to be characterized by poor workmanship or quality?

In contrast, the Mod. 125 brakes are poorly finished and obviously deviate from the Model number = Year of introduction scheme. I'm curious about when they were introduced. No doubt they were intended for lower line applications and competitive pricing relative to japanese offerings.

Charlie Young Honeybrook, PA
> The workmanship and quality of Universal brakes was
> uniformly poor until the CX sidepull of the 1980s but
> nobody was buying them by then. The Weinmann (Swiss)
> side-pull from the early 50s for example had much nicer
> workmanship and quality.
> Chuck Schmidt
> SoPas, SoCal
> ==========================================================
> =================
> Chuck Schmidt
> South Pasadena, CA