Originally Posted by
sailorbenjamin
I think I have a Huret like PastorBob's but with the Schwinn logo on it. It's off a 70's bike i think but you can have it if you want it.
That double Ashtabula is way classy. I haven't seen one like that.
Those chainrings were made by Stronglight, if I'm not mistaken. I have a single on my 1963 Columbia Sports Pacer, which since we're on the subject of Simplex and Schwinn, I'm going to bring the discussion off on a tangent:
This Columbia uses a Simplex
Raidexport derailleur, and recently I corresponded with the guy who runs the Disraeli Gears website about this odd and rare piece of derailleur history, and he related this information to me:
You have a very interesting derailleur. I don't have any precise information about it, but I do hear various variations on a story that goes something like this:
(i) Schwinn originally fitted Simplex 'pull-chain' designs on their derailleur bicycles - and bought these in quantities that surprised European derailleur manufacturers.
(ii) Sometime in the very early 1960's Schwinn decided that Huret's Allvit parallelogram design was superior to Simplex's pull-chain design, and was also much cheaper than Simplex's Export 61 parallelogram design - so they switched to Huret.
(iii) Simplex responded by trying to simplify and reduce the cost of the Export 61 - but Schwinn stuck with the Allvit.
(iv) Simplex then decided that the way forward was to radically reduce the production cost by moving to a plastic design.
Your Raidexport would fit neatly into stage (iii).
Basically, Simplex designed the Raidexport to try and keep Schwinn's business, but they decided to go with Huret anyway. So Columbia stepped in and bought up the Raidexports which apparently weren't going anywhere since Simplex also had just introduced the plastic Prestige.