steelbikeguy

regarding taper compatibility... I am using mine with an old Specialized cup & cone bottom bracket (I think I probably bought it from Rivendell back in the 90's). The taper wasn't a perfect match, so the crank gradually deformed a bit during the first few hundred miles. After each ride, I' checked the crank bolts and snugged them up a bit. After these early miles, no further snugging was needed.
I had seen this sort of deformation before, when installing Campy Record cranks onto a Phil bottom bracket. Phil had assured me that it was a good fit, but I was surprised to find that the cranks had gotten loose after a couple of rides. Never had that happen before when using cranks and axles from the same manufacturer, so it wasn't a matter of not torquing the bolts properly.

Regarding the increased Q factor... I think it is due to the way that the crank arms splay outwards a bit, similar to many modern cranks.
On my Hetchins, the bolts in the 50.4mm circle are fairly close to the BB shell/lug, as shown below...




but the end of the crank arm is quite a way from the chain stay....




Steve in Peoria

non-fixie 

Set of Criterium rings with adapteur:

juvela

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if anyone needs one of these adaptors there is a carton of NOS ones in me atelier

the smallest inner with this arrangement is 43T


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philbob57

I read the thread, I think, and I didn't see this: TA made inner rings for the 50.4 mm BCD outer rings in 3 BCDs - 152 mm Criterium, 136 mm Randonneur, and 80 mm Cyclotouriste. Ebay sellers don't always state what they're selling.

https://specialites-ta.com/pro-5-vis...denture,26-dts implies Spec. TA is still manufacturing Cyclotouriste chain rings. There are a number of retailers in Europe. I needed a 42 a few years ago, and Velo Duo Cycles was selling through ebay; they shipped very fast. Of course, the UK is no longer European, except geographically.

PB'bikes's biz model seems to be to charge high prices for NOS stuff and wait for buyers.

Pro 5 vis is still probably the system that is easiest to use if you like half-step gearing.

73StellaSX76

Thanks for this info. I suppose the prudent thing would be to install a known compatible bb. Time to go out and re-find out the thread size. Part of me wants to find an old TA or Stronglight crank to make it truly French and age appropriate.

non-fixie 

The Viscount version. Compared to the French products, the outer ring looks crude and unnecessarily heavy:

noglider 

I happen to like the Viscount version. I like the round holes in the chainrings.

cudak888 

Big fan of the Viscount outer ring. How can you argue with industrial disco sci-fi wanna-be-C-3PO-Metropolisque bling for your bike? Sure, it's 50.4 bcd, but it's not trying to be the same thing as the classy TA rings.

What's more, they're a wonderful anecdote to Campagnolo Superfluous Record.



I honestly don't remember which crankarms I used, nor can I ID them from this pic. Sure looks nice though.



Still kicking myself 11 years ago for selling the bike with the Viscount rings on it. Couldn't care less about the Trek, but that chainring has never left my mind.

-Kurt

bulgie 

Here are a couple weird ones: Wedge-Lock cranks. They made two completely different styles, a cottered 5-pin and a cotterless 5-pin. English made.

The cottered one (roughly '66 to '69) is my favorite, I have a set but in temporary storage at the moment due to a shop remodel. I will try to get them out to take some pics. They have two strange things about them, one is they are made of a thick-wall steel tube, brass (bronze) fillet-brazed to fittings at the ends for the cottered spindle and the pedal thread. So the arms are hollow. Reasonably lightweight as steel cottered cranks go.

But the other weird thing, which is what gives them their name, is the cotters are not round (cylindrical), but an oval cross-section. The angle of the wedge "ramp" is steeper than any normal cotter, which has the nice advantage that they're very easy to extract. Just loosen the nut and they come out easily, no massive hammer blows or fancy pin-press needed. Here's some literature about them:



Curious (dubious) claims include "We do guarantee you will NOT win without WEDGE-LOCK". Hmm, you guarantee that? Really.

The other wacky design using the name Wedge-Lock was cotterless but there was no extractor tool. Each hexagonal or square* end of the axle was sawed in two at an angle in a way that made the two pieces of the axle (on each side) wedge and lock onto the crank when the central bolt was tightened.
* The drawing shows a hexagonal spindle end and mating shape in the crank, but the photos of actual cranks show the spindle and crank hole as being square. Running change?
Well I'm wasting words trying to describe it, just look at the pics & drawings:





This one seems like a terrible idea to me. I can't imagine they were very successful, or reliable. Anyone here know?

Mark B in Seattle

bulgie 

Another wacky 5-pin crank, the TA Criterium. This was their first crankset, I forget the year released but early-60s. They had been making chainrings since forever, but always for other people's cranks prior to the Criterium.

It's sometimes referred to as a cottered crank but I disagree; the things that look sorta like cotters are actually pinch bolts. Maybe I'm quibbling but there's one big difference: With a cottered crank, the cotter transmits all the torque (from the left crank to the spindle and from the spindle to the right crank). With a TA Criterium, the torque is carried by the pie-shape of the spindle-crank interface, and you can actually ride it (a bit) without the pinchbolts. The bolts just locate the arms side-to side, giving you a little bit of chainline adjustability. The pie chape is not tapered, so there's no extractor — with the pinchbolts loose, the arms can slide side-to-side, a little.


In practice, they work, though TA abandoned the design soon after they were released. I have heard that a lot of them broke, but not at the weird pseudo-cottered interface, they broke at one end or the other of the "vanity groove" that they milled into the arms to make them look lighter. That groove, sometimes called fluting, was much deeper on the Criterium model than on later TA cranks like the Professional.

One annoying thing about them is the "cotter" is often difficult to remove, it wedges itself in pretty tight, and you need to fully remove it to allow the crank to slide all the way off -- there's a raised lip on the spindle that prevents the arm falling off in use, maybe a good idea, like if the pinchbolt gets loose. If you want to be able to remove the cranks without taking the pinchbolts out, you can grind the lip off the spindle, as I did on mine. Removing that lip also gives you a little more range for chainline adjustment. Here's a shot of the spindle with the lip:



Here's a pic of the crank mounted on the spindle after the lip has been removed. You can see the air gap where the lip used to be:



Now you just loosen that bolt with the 5 mm allen wrench socket like a half-turn, and the crank slides right off.

Note, doing this mod reduces the historical accuracy and maybe the collector's item value, not to mention making them less fail-safe. In my defense, I did this to mine in about 1976 when I was 19 years old. Nothing bad happened, but I didn't ride them too many miles. Still have them, but they're not on a bike anymore. Too valuable and/or prone to fatigue cracking for my taste on a bike I actually ride, and that's all my bikes. I am not a bike collector. (Though I may be a crankset collector?)

Mark B in Seattle

bulgie 

Yet another cool old 5-pin, the Duprat hollow steel cottered. Not made like the Wedge-Lock out of tubing; these were normal forged cranks that were drilled, from the BB spindle end, almost all the way out the pedal end. Then the BB spindle end was forged shut, except for that thin slit you see (info from their patent application). You can only see the hollowness by taking the cranks off the spindle and taking the pedal out, but I think any Duprat with the slit opposite the cotter pin hole is the hollow model.



Not only are they hollow, but also very slender on the outside too, compared to aluminum cranks. Pretty lightweight. Lots of testimonials saying they had decent strength/reliability, despite the lightness. Ted Ernst is a renowned racer (and all-around cool dude) who raced everything, but especially track, including 6-Days in Europe and in America. He had this to say:5 years under Ted Ernst is like a lifetime of riding by some mere mortal.

In case anyone doubts they're really hollow, here are some pics of a crank that some nutjob sawed in half the long way. It shows how they drilled it to two diameters with a step partway down.





They never were common exactly, and much rarer now, but still a decent number of them survive.

Mark B in Seattle

non-fixie 

Now he tells me.


BTW, thank you for adding these. Much appreciated!

bulgie 

OK one more, the Gnutti steel cotterless crankset with splined interface. WAY before Bullseye, Profile, Octalink, ISIS et al. ever thought to use splines. Even before the Williams AB-77 splined alloy cotterless. (Oh I guess I might have to write that one up too. It was 50.4 5-pin, but with a spider adapter to the Campy standard 151 mm BCD.) I think these Gnutti sets are late-'50s vintage.





That last pic shows the nice deep fluting, raised pedal platform, and bright polished chrome finish — these are nice-lookin' cranks... if you like that sort of thing.

For extra wackiness, the crank-to-spindle mounting bolt is left-hand threaded. On one side or both, I forget — mine are not accessible right now. The extractor tool is unique and very much not interchangeable with anything else. I have one, and before you ask, no sorry I won't lend it out, too precious to risk putting it in the mail. The crankset becomes pretty much unusable without an extractor — I won't put a crank on a bike I ride, if I have no way to get it off for servicing. I will remove anyone's crank with my extractor for the price of one bottle of good strong ale, if you bring the bike to me.

Let me know if y'all need pics of the Williams AB 77. I bet google image search will show you plenty. They are also very aesthetically pleasing, with a polish and pearl anodizing that rivals Campy. The spline interface was not super reliable I think; they lasted OK for me when I rode them for a few years, but I've seen a few others where the hole in the crank is all wallowed out. Maybe it was the mechanic who installed them that was defective... But whatever the reason, I have extra spindles for mine, given to me by people who ruined their cranks. Soft Al alloy cranks never win in a battle with hardened steel BB spindles. I think the Gnutti splined cranks were considered more reliable, just because the cranks are steel. Like the Bullseye.

Oh wait, the Bullseye splined cranks had a 50.4 mm 5-pin chainring attachment too — maybe I need to write them up for this thread? This is becoming a full-time job — I think I'll let it (and me) rest.

Mark B in Seattle

hazetguy 

Some more Shimano Deore. These were made in both double and triple chainring configurations.

The outer chainring on a double has the bosses for the smallest (triple) chainring, but they are not threaded / machined. Doubles seem to be much more "rare" than triples.
Pic of the backside of a double I found on the interweb:


Triple configuration:

steelbikeguy

to give Mark a chance to catch his breath.. let me offer this Bullseye sales literature.
I love the idea of combining something as traditional as the 50.4mm bolt circle with an extremely elliptical chainring.... although Roger calls the ellipse "traditional" compared to Biopace.



Steve in Peoria

obrentharris 

This has been a very educational thread! Thanks to all.
I almost forgot about these on my Follis berceau:



Durax cranks with Simplex chainrings identified by @juvela as "Tourist" model.

Brent

non-fixie 

@obrentharris just made me think of something that is hiding somewhere in a dark recess of my attic, waiting for me to retire:

steelbikeguy

okay.. that little glimpse is just too cool! Curly mid-stay, front suicide shifter tucked down low, and some sort of bell-crank and plunger rear derailleur?? Dang, we need to see more of that bike!

Steve in Peoria

nlerner

I’ve had this 50.4 to 122mm bcd adapter in my stash for a long time. Seems like it takes a very versatile crankset and makes it far less so, but I suppose if all you have on hand are 122 bcd chainrings, it’s what you need.

obrentharris 

Thanks!
The two-man restoration thread is HERE.
Brent

Jeff Wills

Dang. I had a set of Bullseye cranks once upon a time. They had the 110mm/74mm spider. I wish I still had them- I sold them at a swap meet. That would have been an interesting combination on my Super Sport 3-speed.

steelbikeguy

were the Bullseye cranks any lighter than the average 50.4mm bcd crank made of aluminum? Or was the point of the tubular steel cranks just to be strong and robust?

I never owned the Bullseye cranks, but did own a Bullseye roller bracket for a while. It was very robust, but I got tired of the slow loss of oil and need to monitor the oil level.

Steve in Peoria

noglider 

This design is handsome, practical, and versatile. Why isn't it more commonly found? Is it expensive to make compared with other designs?

steelbikeguy

my personal guess is that the ton of hardware could be a factor. ... especially when compared to the 3 arm cranks that were common in that era.

If I were the kind of guy who went out on a limb.... I'd say that the 50.4mm bolt circle was pretty dated by the time that I got into the hobby back in the 70's. Maybe good enough for touring and that sort of thing, but the racers had moved onto Campy and other equivalents.
Oddly, the TA cranks did seem to be popular with time trialists looking for minimal set-ups.

Steve in Peoria

clubman 

Traditionally, TA seemed to have catered to time trialling and other speed record attempts. Mike Barry always had a wild assortment of TA stuff, his son is currently selling much of it on ebay. (bicyclespecialties) They made some ridiculously big rings, probably more range than any other marque.
I've always found that TA rings are pretty tough as well. Back in my high mileage days, I seemed to go through Shimano rings in a couple of seasons, no so with TA.