The Ofmega Mistral chainset was introduced to the French buying public at t he Paris Show in September 1981. Whether it had been introduced in 1980 at the Milan or Cologne Shows, I cant recall.
It caused quite a stir at the time, due to its somewhat radical design o f the crank's spider and the asymetrical cut of the arms on the chain rings. I think it was also the first chainset to depart from stamping the m aker's name on the crank, using instead a printed or etched method.
The revealing story about the crank is that the cranks were an Anglo-Ita lian joint venture, but I just cant recall which way around the story went. Either the crranks were forged in Italy and sent to Sturmer-Archer in Nott ingham for finishing or vice-versa.
Sutherland's Bicycle Mechanics Book doesn't have much to say about Ofmeg a axles except to say that they should only be used with Ofmega cranks...so there must be some departure from the norm. The pitch circle is 144mm..and the smallest inner ring is a 42T
Norris Lockley....Settle UK
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