Lascauxcaveman 

I have had a bunch of 600 Arabesque bits plunk down in my lap recently, and I began to wonder, did they ever make a triple crank in that style? Well, just ask and eBay shall respond:


It's kind of a weird setup, with the granny ring apparently bolted to the middle ring, rather than the spider. This seems structurally less than optimal.

Anybody ever use one of these things? Notice any problem with flex, or breakage? The seller is asking $150, which is way beyond my "Let's try it and see how it works" discretionary spending range.

GordoTrek

I have one but i converted it to a double... I was thinking of converting it back.. I may not now

andyfloyd

sweet looking triple though, structurally sound or not it looks great!

T-Mar

Technically, the answer is "no", as I don't believe that is a Shimano adapter. To satisfy cyclists requiring wide range chainrings, Shimano continued to offer their 1st generation 600 crankset, which was a 3-arm triple crankest with a 95mm BCD and a 30T granny ring.

GordoTrek

My triple doesn't mount Iike that, it mounts all three cogs to the 5 crank bolts, when I converted it, I used the smallest and the largest, 39\52 I think, I wonder if yours is original

dddd

Shimano made a 6000-series triple crank which, while never tagged as "600", bore a striking resemblance to the "New 600 EX" componentry.

Tom Ritchey spec'd these 110/74mm cranks on mtb's that had Dura-Ace hubs, so these were every bit the high-quality bits you could compare to 640X (600 or Ultegra) components, however they were labeled.
The early '90's Deore DX (triple) crankarms also had a 6000-series numbering, so you could reasonably compare those crankarms to 600 components as well.

The first Ultegra triple was an Octalink 9-speed crank, which was immediately preceded by an index-compatible 105 triple that used a square-taper bottom bracket and was offered in standard and (later) lo-profile versions.

old's'cool

Isn't that just the elusive "triplizer" adapter on that 600 crank?... which is a neat concept, but not very cost effective, considering that when the teeth on the triplizer chainring wear out, the triple setup is toast, pretty much.

jjhabbs 

I don't think that the 600 crank had a triple option that year...pretty cool though

Velognome 

The torque produced with the lower ring would not be that great unless your pulling stumps. I've done it on my own bike, made a triple out of a double, not the stump pulling.

T-Mar

That would be the FC-6206 which was part of the New 600EX group. Originally Shimano 600 was devised as a touring group. With it's suceess they brought out the sports/racing version, 600EX in 1978. These two versions co-existed. Both touring and sport/racing disciplines were eventually brought under the same group with New 600EX.

However, being New 600EX this crankset superceded 600EX (Arabesque) and the distinction of the only official Shimano 600 series triple crankset being available during the Arabesque production period belongs to the Shimano 600 3-arm crankset.

Lascauxcaveman 

I guess that makes sense, at least the way I use a granny gear, which is mostly just to keep a comfortable cadence going while on a steep climb. What'd you do to make the conversion? Buy one of those tripleizer rings that used to be available, or fabricate something on your own?

puchfinnland

fyi
I remember when I purchased my TORKER bmx new in late 70,s
bmx action magazine tested the bike, and commented that the shimano 600 cranks were weak and they managed to bend them..
Well I managed to bend mine also.

I doubt this could happen to a road bike.

dddd

I was going to comment on how light the 600EX Arabesque parts were, including the slim crankarms.
The brake calipers were particularly flimsy imo.
The shifters and derailers were almost dainty and the hubs were svelte.
SR bikes featured an OEM version of the 600EX crank with a swaged-on alloy spider.

I later noticed that the first 600 SIS rear derailer dramatically improved the shifting on any otherwise full 600EX (or New 600EX) equipped bike.

cyclotoine

I like that someone else is on the same page regarding Arabesque. In my opinion it gets too much praise. It think shimano was trying to put lipstick on a pig so to speak with their fancy swirls and embossing. I always felt they were trying to tap into the aesthetic appeal of nuovo record with a very substandard group (the brake being particularly crummy).

dddd

Yeah, those calipers seem to be about the same underwhelming power of some of DiaComp's and Weinmann's sidepulls of that era.

I really don't like that the cables on many of these calipers comes in on the wrong side, as if for reversed brake levers?
A Schwinn Paramount (and others like my 1952 Christophe/Automoto) had cable stops that were positioned for the backwards caliper in back, and indeed the Christophe came delivered with reverse lever positioning vs. what we see today.

Some of the price-point crankarms from the 1970's, including Arabesque iir, are stamped "Forged", but it was melt-forging and not cold-forging.

And those early 600 cassette hubs had the freehub body cheaply swaged on, and would loosen. This stuff was more like an entry-level gruppo as compared to the later New 600EX and 6400 SIS gruppos, but was impressively light if not terribly durable.
The "engraving" at the time looked silly to me, it still was-what-it-was and didn't come across as particularly high quality, but benefitted from Shimano's "W-Cut" and Uniglide chainring and cog technology which was ahead of it's time.

old's'cool

I'm not one to knock the Arabesque ornamentation since I am not well equipped to judge aesthetics, but I will say that it doesn't do anything for me personally. My one piece of Arabesque kit is an RD that came to me on a frankenbike that I purchased and is now in use on different frankenbike. I notice that Shimano did not not persist with the Arabesque series. I guess it could be argued that its successor was the Golden Arrow, which seems to be quite restrained by comparison.