Huret may have been perceived as low-end primarily in America because of the Allvit derailleurs on the low-end Schwinns. Not sure the perception was the same in Europe. After all, they made the Jubilee, the lightest and some would say the prettiest RD ever made, with beautiful and light FD and shifters to match. Japanese collectors today often pay astronomical prices for a long cage Jubilee in mint condition. And there was the part titanium Duopar, and a short cage Titane. And a lot of quite nice mid-priced derailleurs. And Huret equipped three time TdF winner Louison Bobet. Even the Allvit started its long life as a top model.
Huret's failing may have been that they had much less success than Simplex in getting the French manufacturers to spec them as OE. The only bikes I can think of off hand with Huret OE were the Raleigh Competition (in one of its incarnations) and the Motobecane Grand Jubilee, and of course only the latter was French. By the 80's, the Grand Jubilee had switched to Japanese derailleurs. Also interesting that neither of these bikes was a top model. The Competition was third in line behind the Professional and International (or fourth if you include the Team Pro). The Grand Jubilee was below Team Champion, Le Champion and Grand Record. Odd they couldn't get the Jubilee speced on a top model. Perhaps it was because the top models were usually racing bikes and racers considered the Jubilee to fragile.
Maybe another problem getting into the OE market was Huret's limited range of products. They made derailleurs, shifters, brazeons and DO's, wingnuts and a belt driven odometer. But if they ever made hubs, headsets, cranks, pedals or brakes, I've never seen an example of these. Of course, I suppose one could say the same of Simplex. But we usually think of Simplex/Stronglight almost as one entity, while no one ever speaks of Huret/Stronglight.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Houston, TX
Donald Gillies <gillies@cs.ubc.ca> wrote: Let's talk about Huret for a moment. Who among us is a Huret Bigot ?? Have you ever stripped off campy parts so that you could install some Huret parts ?? Do you still love the shifting on your Schwinn Varsity?
It seems to me that Huret led the world in department-store bicycle technology for many, many years. It was an ignominious thing to do, but someone had to do it.
When it was time to die, Suntour converted its factories to thermos bottles (the brand name was absorbed by SR.) Simplex was not absorbed by Sachs. However, Huret was absorbed by Sachs and later SRAM and you can still get Huret stuff (of sorts). Go Figure.
Is there so lesson to be learned here ??
Is life actually secure at the bottom of the food chain ??
I wonder ...
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA