Roypercy

Hi all:

My current ride is a 1982 Grand Jubilee, a bike I like a lot. It's pretty much all original. It came stock with Simplex SX610 derailleurs, which have always been, well, ok. But lately I'm finding the rear derailleur is going out of adjustment pretty frequently and I have a lot of trouble keeping it dialed in: either it won't want to go onto the biggest chainring, or it won't go onto the smallest.

Since I've never been all that crazy about the Simplex anyway, I'm thinking about upgrading. What puzzles me is the dropouts. They aren't branded "Simplex"; the only engraving on the dropouts I can see looks like "CO". What's also weird is, the rear derailleur isn't just screwed directly into the dropout, there's some sort of washer with a built-in stop between the derailleur and the dropout. My experience with this stuff is pretty limited; usually in the past I've worked on maintaining the parts I had, rather than replacing them. My wife's Grand Touring has Suntour dropouts and Suntour derailleurs, and I had expected my bike's dropouts to be branded "simplex" but it looks to me like something else is going on.

Anybody know what I've got here? I'd love to switch to Huret something, since my last two vintage roadbikes had Huret derailleurs and I like their action a lot more. And it would be at least keeping my GJ as French as possible. What else might be compatible without too much fiddling?

eschlwc

your on-frame derailleur hanger should be standard threaded and with a 'stop' for nearly any rear derailleur to work.

my '80 vitus 172 grand jubilé featured suntour cyclone, a favorite of c&v.

eschlwc

my '80

eschlwc

'82 moto catalogue

qcpmsame 

I suspect that eschlwc has the right choice for a rear derailleur, other than Huret and Simplex there wasn't many other French mechs available, to my limited knowledge. My wife and I had a matched pair of Jubilee Sports, 1981 models, and I remember them having Suntour mechs, but I could be wrong. A nice Suntour of several of their mechs would offer trouble free shifting.

Please, if you would post some pics of your bike, these are really nice looking bikes. And his black and red is probably my favorite colourway.

Bill

Roypercy

Always happy to! This is what she looks like all cleaned up and polished. I should take some better pics. Tomorrow I'll take pics of the dropouts to see if anybody has any other thoughts.

qcpmsame 

Very nice! A great job on that one, well done sir, very well done.

Bill

T-Mar

The OP's bicycle appears to use Huret's later style dropouts. They are readily identifiable by the cable stop being incorporated into the dropout. These dropouts have a stop tab in the standard 7 o'clock position and are threaded, so will accept most derailleurs. Some earlier Huret models designed for the old dropout with the 5 o'clock stop will require the tabbed, adapter washer.

Salamandrine 

Yeah, the campy system had become standard by that point.

That was a weird period for Motobecane. They were going out of business, and the decided to go back to mostly French components, even though they had been a pioneer in equipping their bikes with Japanese parts. Anyway, I'd suggest you put the Simplex in a box on a shelf, and find a vintage cyclone derailleur set to put on there instead.

Jseis 

Sweet.

Roypercy

Thanks, Bill!

Roy

verktyg 

The RD is a Simplex SX 610 GT/SP with a 34T large freewheel sprocket capacity. They shifted about as well as pre-SIS Shimano and Suntour friction RDs.

Not shifting to the small sprocket can mean the derailleur needs to be thoroughly cleaned and lubricated, same with the cable and housing. A worn upper pulley can cause shifting problems too. Also check the upper and lower limit screws. Clean and lube the chain too.



I have a Simplex SX 610 GT/SP on my 1980 Moto Grand Jubile (still called Grand Jubile in 1980).




I've never seen a Motobecane with Simplex dropouts. They used Campagnolo, Huret and Suntour dropouts with integral derailleurs hangers on their mid range to top quality models.

Per @T-Mar in message 8, the dropouts on your bike were made by Huret. Motobecane used them on a lot of their models from ~1978 through the early 1980's. They appear to have been made of investment cast steel.



The derailleur hangers on most Huret dropouts from the mid 60's until the mid 70's were a proprietary design that only worked with Huret derailleurs.



By the mid 70's Huret gave up their fantasy of world domination and changed their derailleurs and dropouts to be compatible with the de facto standard Campagnolo design.

You can mount most brands of 1970's and later C&V derailleurs on your bike without any problem - except for early 70's Huret RDs which require an adapter.


That's not a washer on your Simplex RD. It's the travel limit stop that's part of the derailleur. There's several different styles.



A word of caution, don't try to remove Simplex derailleurs by removing the nylon plugs in the hex openings in the pivot bolts. Those hex openings are only for adjusting the pivot spring tension.



Loosen the mounting screw on the inside of the dropout.




Simplex and Huret (later called Sachs-Huret).


verktyg

Chas.

ollo_ollo

"What else might be compatible without to much fiddling?"
I built my 78 Grand Jubile up from a frame that came with nothing but the BB & Headset. I was able to find some original parts along with other non-original, but French, parts from swap meets, but I found the early Shimano 600 "Arabesque" derailleurs work well on the Grand Jubile, plus the shift levers look especially good with the ornate lugs. Don

Roypercy

Great info, thanks so much!

Roypercy

Nice to hear - I always like the early Shimano 600 stuff - although my lugs aren;t nearly as neat as yours.

verktyg 

Conversation about C&V era Motobecanes can quickly devolve into "The six blind men discussing their perceptions of an elephant!"



Motobecane marketed bikes under at least 3 different brands - Motobecane, Motoconfort (in Europe and the UK) and Astra (mostly low end house brand bikes imported into the US by Beacon Cycle during the early 70's bike boom). There may have been another brand too, maybe "Patin"??? from the Paris suburbs where Motobecane was located.

Motobecane like Peugeot, Gitane, Raleigh and Bianchi, produced models for at least 6 different markets around the world: France, the US, the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Poland and other East Bloc countries, Canada, Australia, even Japan. Many times the same model would be sold with different names, color/decal schemes, tubing, plus different components - who knows why?

That's one of the reasons why you will find so many variations in Motobecane models!

The Grand Jubile model was introduced in late 1973 to coincide with Huret's new Jubilee derailleurs. Those derailleurs were named in celebration of Huret's 50th (Jubilee) anniversary - better late than never! BTW, some of the early Motobecane bikes were supposed to have been called Grand Jubilee not Jubile.

In the early 70's bikes came with 4 different styles of dropouts. Most came with cheap stamped steel dropouts that used derailleurs with universal "claw" style mounts.



Better quality bikes came with forged steel dropouts with an integral derailleur hanger. That was a sign of a good bike (bikes with claw mount derailleurs were considered cheap!). In France that meant Huret, Simplex or Campagnolo - all mutually incompatible systems.


In France up through the 1970's many better quality bikes were custom built by "constructeurs". Most towns and cities had at least one constructeur. They were frame builders who provided complete bikes to their customer's specifications. Singer and Herse were two of the top examples.

When someone ordered a custom bike, they had to decide what brand of derailleurs they wanted to use - for a long time.


Only Huret derialleurs fit their proprietary dropouts but Huret made adapters for their derailleurs to fit Campy compatible dropouts.



See my Flickr album on Huret mounting screws etc. - explanations below pictures:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/282672...57623530295917

https://www.flickr.com/photos/282672...57626948207829


Simplex dropouts were proprietary to Simplex derailleurs to but could be modified to take Huret or Campy compatible derailleurs. I've never seen a Motobecane with Simplex dropouts.

Simplex direct mount derailleurs fit most Campy compatible dropouts.

Campagnolo compatible stye dropouts became the de facto standard for derailleur hangers.

Clear as mud eh?


Back to Motobecane GJs... Late 1973 was when the first model Grand Jubiles hit the market. In May 1974 Bicycling Magazine published a review on the then new Grand Jubile. The bike that Richard Jow reviewed was a 1973 model which was in the catalog yet. The chrome plated stamped steel fork crown plus the frame geometry were different from the 1974 models sold in the US. There some misleading info in the article too - it was written during the bike boom when we were young and dumb and naive!

Link to article:

<---------- Bike World 05-1974 ----------> Motobecane Grand Jubile

The original models came with short arm Huret Jublee RDs mounted on proprietary Huret dropouts. The bikes were billed as "fast club touring" models and almost racing frame geometry (for the day).

The gears were 14-28T 5 speed freewheel with 52-40T cranks. By late 1974 the short arm Jubilee was replaced with the long arm touring model to allow owners to switch to lower gears like a 14-32T FW.


Ben Lawee was the US importer for Motobecane and had a shrewd eye for marketing. Huret Jubilee derailleurs wee light and looked cool but they were very fragile (delicate) especially in the hands of ham fisted hammer mechanics and inexperienced US cyclists.

Add to that, French components had a bad reputation for being overly fussy to operate plus in 1974 there was still a shortage of some European made components. Peugeot had a stranglehold of Stronglight cranksets and Normandy Luxe Competition hubs so Motobecane, Gitane and Raleigh had to look elsewhere for parts for their better quality models.

Voilà! Ben Lawee had a lot of influence with Motobecane. European countries had high protective tariffs against Asian made bikes but not necessarily components that were being exported on French bikes going to the US.


Suntour Cyclone derailleurs first appeared in a cycling industry rag (trade newspaper) in the fall of 1974. In June of 1975 I received 2 sets of the first shipment of Cyclone derailleurs to reach the US. I bought them for our shop but I fell in love when them so I kept both sets for myself and bought more for our store.


In 1976 Lawee got Motobecane to switch the derailleurs on the Grand Jubile bikes from Huret to Suntour Cyclone GT. Probably too many shop and customer complaints about the Huret Jubilees.

Also the cranks changed from Stronglight model 49 to SR AX5. The 1976 models looked more like high end professional bikes! MARKETING!

The 1976 US catalog shows that the GJs came with either French or Japanese components: Huret long arm Jubilee RDs or Suntour Cyclone GTs. Two reasons... There were still a lot of French equipped bikes in the inventory pipeline... and the Suntour Cyclone GT derailleurs were not readily available until mid 1976.

1976 US catalog and spec sheet:



The GJs with Suntour derailleurs came with Suntour dropouts.

Grand Jubiles from 1973 to 1976 had frames with butted Reynolds 531 2 main tubes (3 TUBES RENFORCE) the forks and stays were lower quality tubing. In 1977 the frame tubes switched to all Vitus 172. The derailleurs were still Cyclone GT with Suntour dropouts.

The 1978 model still had Cyclone GT RDs but the dropouts switched to the new Campy compatible style Huret. They used them interchangeably with Campy dropouts on many of their better models. My 1978 Team Champion has Huret dropouts and so does my ~1981 Grand record.




Now you know the rest of the story... Yawn!


verktyg

Chas.

verktyg 

BF is screwed up again - get a blank page when I try to edit... I'll add the missing pictures when things start working again.

T-Mar

I believe that 1982 was the year before Helicomatic hubs and cassettes were introduced by Maillard, so if this were my bicycle and improved shifting was the priority, then I'd switch to a Shimano index compatible rear derailleur and one of their HyperGlide compatible, 6 speed freewheels and chains. The combination of slant parallelogram, CAD designed derailleur in combination with the profiled cogs and chain plates, makes a world of difference and the cost can be less than an era correct mid-range Huret. I'd keep the OEM rear derailleur, freewheel and chain, in case you decide to sell the bicycle in the future.