The Sachs Huret New Success derailleurs were dead nuts knock offs of the venerable Shimano Crane and Crane GS derailleurs. Almost every European derailleur manufacturer copied the design even Campy with the 1st generation Rally RDs and late 80's pre-index designs.

Lately I've been riding my 83 Colnago Super with a mid 70's Shimano Crane derailleur. Still shifts crisp - 1 step forward or backward - unlike Campy S/GS/NR/SR/NGS/Triomphe/Victory/C-Record and other models with 2 forward, 1 back shifting.



The Huret Duopars with the titanium pivot knuckles and titanium cages were light weight and shifted well when new. They can be shifted from the smallest sprocket to the largest in one step with minimum gear grinding!

One of the problems with Doupars is titanium alloys can be heat treated to much higher strengths than most steel alloys but they're more flexible that steel.

With a few exceptions, I've preferred long arm derailleurs with steel cages for the increased rigidity over aluminum or in the case of Duopars titanium cages. e.g. Suntour VG-T with a steel cage, Shimano Deore LX and so on.

We imported French bikes and components during the 1970's. When the Duopar first came out, we ordered some of them along with a few Duopar Acier derailleurs - not knowing what they were.

These had satin chrome plated steel pivot knuckles and pulley cages. We found them to be superior to the titanium Duopars on tandems and for off road use. From what I've seen they were undocumented - not in any catalogs or literature!

I have one on the touring bike I built for myself back in 1975. It still works great. These were NOT the Huret ECO model which came out later in the 1970's.



In 1975 our wholesale cost for Duopars from France was ~$90 USD. The Duopar Acier RDs cost about half that much.

verktyg

Chas.