Chas wrote:
In the 70s when a customer brought a bike in to our shop for service that had Simplex QRs, unless they were in perfect condition, we usually sold them a set of Atom QRs. They were cheap and they WORKED.
I saw a lot of failures in the lever mechanisms in the Simplex QRs. They had a poor design that was really flimsy.
Chas. Colerich Oakland, CA USA
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I wonder how often the old style Simplex levers were mistakenly thought to be in the locked position, when the end nut had just been too tightly adjusted - with the lever flipped down the "wrong" direction. I can see how they might bounce open when ridden on a rough road surface.
The later Simplex stamped Campagnolo-style levers VERY clearly mimicked the look of the models which they copied. I have some with Record type domed nuts and others with circlips like the Nuovo Tipo version. Amazing that it took Simplex so long to follow suit when everyone else had just copied the already long perfected basic Campagnolo design of the 1930s.
Even the threads of the Olde Simplex skewers were M5 x .75 ... after most of the known world had adopted M5 x .80 and all other French makers used M5 x .90 Naturally, this made the often busted plastic outer wingnuts impossible to replace with another simpler design of end nut.
Seems like French companies or designers could not accept that their personal choices were ever just inferior [e.g. Delrin plastic]. Fortunately, some designs worked... and we had square tapered cotterless spindles for over 70 years. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose - in the French case, often with absurdly flamboyant panache. :-)
Still, I'm somehow fond of the French for being pig-headedly individualistic in so many respects.
Yes, I would even love to someday own a "Ugly Duckling" Citroen C2V like this 1954 model:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/
Bob _Is-It-Broken-Or-Just-French_ Hanson
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
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