At 10:40 AM -0800 11/26/09, Jerome & Elizabeth Moos wrote:
> One consideration is the unique brazeon (or weldon) for the FD. It
>will probably be extremely difficult and expensive to source a
>special Barra FD.
That fitting is for a Le Chat front derailleur with a Barra lever system - see "The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles" p. 90-91.
As with all these hand-made parts, the easiest way is to make one,
not try to find one.
>Did Barra ever use vertical DO's on touring models?
Yes, usually the cyclotouring bikes had vertical dropouts. The bike
on e-bay looks more like a sportif, like the one in Bicycle Quarterly
Vol. 6, No. 4, which also had horizontal dropouts. The bridges on the
e-bay bike aren't drilled for fenders, either...
>
>The FD fitting also will restrict the size of the large chainwheel,
>although there were certainly steel constructeur bikes with similar
>special FD fittings. That's one disadvantage of constructeur bikes.
>They were highly integrated with the original components, but that
>also means it may be difficult to change components or replace the
>originals half a century later.
True, you can't put a 54-tooth ring onto most constructeur bikes, but if Fausto Coppi could win the Tour de France with a 51-14 as his largest gear, a 48-14 should suffice for the rest of us... My problem usually is that the derailleur sits too high - I'd rather use a 46-tooth "big" ring. And it's been a long time since somebody dropped me while I was in my big ring.
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
2116 Western Ave.
Seattle WA 98121
http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com