Was browsing a seller's listings on eBay and stumbled upon a Simplex SX2 derailleur. I'd never heard of it before. I saw an entry in Velobase with no years attached. I saw nothing in Disraeli Gears. This sure looks like Simplex went all in on Delrin at this point. The parallelogram seems to be stamped steel, but everything else is plastic. Targeted for the kid's bike market? The fasteners make it look like the target was Wal-Mart bikes.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/301713636387

That's a new one for me. Looks like the end pieces and pulley cage are plastic, but the central parallelogram plate may be pressed sheet metal. It doesn't look like the upper pivot is sprung, almost as if Simplex were trying to do a plastic implementation of the Huret Challenger derailleur.

Agreed, it also looks like an accident waiting to happen...are those cracks appearing in the pivot and J.W. or seam lines? At leastt the Huret used a little more metal
I think it would be best for display only but I would have to think thrice at the price being offered.
Best, Ben

I think those derailleurs came out during Simplex's dying days in the late 80's
They were pretty cheaply made and some parts were even stamped steel when pretty much all manufacturers abandoned such materials for their derailleurs for good. I think most of the other parts are indeed plastic.....
I suspect Simplex made these as they tried to desperately catch just the bottom end of the market when the other makers left them behind in the dust with newer tech derailleurs with indexed systems.
Kind of a sad end to a company that was at one time, one of the biggest component makers in Europe.

The idea was solid, but not the materials. We do have CF derailleurs now, so at least the idea was good.

That is really sad.

Simplex did try to get into indexed shifting, surprisingly quite early in the 80's with this:
VeloBase.com - Component: Simplex Selematic 5
But I suspect, like many early attempts by other makers, it did not work that well, plus, the humungous proportions of the RD must have not impressed that many people.....

Was this before or after the Spidel conglomeration/partnership?

Must be right before that time.But I think there was actually quite a bit of overlap when simplex was still selling their components under their name and they were also supplying the Spidel conglomerate their products for re-branding....

Spidel began life ~1977 as a consortium of 4 main French component manufacturers: Simplex, Mafac, Stronglight and Maillard. The idea was to supply gruppos to compete against Campagnolo and Shimano - product name recognition.

There was little if any coordination between those manufactures. It was always an unholy alliance.

Spidel faded away around 1985.

The short history of Spidel, the French bike parts company




The SXS-2 probably came out during the dying days of Simplex - late 80's - 1992.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different outcomes. (Delrin plastic derailleurs 1961-1992?)

Lucien Charles Hippolyte Juy - Personally responsible for the demise of the French bicycle industry!

BTW, I have Simplex derailleurs on over 20 bikes, from the late 60's to the mid 80's.

verktyg

I was going to post before that I'd read that Lucien Juy was either unaware or unconcerned about the effect of Delrin derailleurs on Simplex' reputation- and the people around him were too afraid to tell him.

Here's a link to a post I made in 2014:

Simplex / delrin

Peugeot was behind the whole thing! In 1961 Lucien Juy introduced the Simplex all metal Juy Export 61 rear derailleur which was superior in design to most others on the market for the next 10+ years. It had sprung upper and lower pivots.

Simplex Juy Export 61 derailleur

Shortly afterwards in cooperation with Peugeot, Simplex started making variants of the design using DuPont Delrin plastic parts.

A Centime saved....




Daniel Rebour warned Lucien Juy and the rest of the French bicycle industry that they were forever condemning themselves to the image of producing cheap, fussy products. His warnings fell on deaf ears!

verktyg