Somebody say big ring?



-Kurt

that reminds me of another big ring that also happens to use the 50.4mm bolt circle....
and is it just chance that the author of the Cyclist magazine article has the first initials of "T.A."??





I've seen this bike on display, since it used to be part of the Schwinn collection. Not sure if I could find the photos of it, though.

Steve in Peoria

Wow, I am impressed with the weird stuff that [MENTION=160106]bulgie[/MENTION] showed us above... but there's more. From Hilary Stone's website:



"FB ROUND TAPER CHAINSET 170mm 50T 3/32in chainring Early 1950s complete with bottom bracket, has been quite well rechromed, small amount of pitting to BB axle, complete with axle keys. Exceptionally rare."

Can it be that no one mentioned that in England they used a very similar five pin design-- not exactly 50.4 mm but close enough that one can make the rings interchangeable with some fettling. This photo is also from Hilary Stone's site:

My apologies, it looks like I never got back to you

VO certainly seems to expect that their customers who buy their framesets are using modern shifting and braking gear. I believe all of their current frame offerings are of the disc brake and threadless headset flavor, but they seem to be doing a great job of balancing the modern tech with a more vintage flavor. Lots of polished alloy parts in classic shapes, but with tech like pinned and ramped chainrings, thru axle disc brake hubs, etc. I think it's assumed that if you are using STI or Ergo shift levers that the drivetrain should be able to handle shifting out of the saddle under load.

I'm happy that I've had the experience of friction shifting a 10 speed with plain chainrings - I've really had no complaints about how well the chain moves across the drivetrain but I'm also not a competitive rider trying to keep up with someone else. Sometimes, though, you want dead simple operation, which is why my rando bike now has indexed shifting. During a long day in the saddle it's a luxury to not have to think about the mechanics of shifting all that much

Goodness, I really love this thread and all its bike obscura!!

The only trouble I have with 5V cranks is how expensive they are. Thus, playing to my strengths, I have been toying with an idea lately, to take a cheap five-arm in my favorite 165 length and try machining a 50.4 spider out of the existing arms and web. This would be child's play on a CNC mill. Just a few lines of code for the arc-shaped "step" that the chainring sits on, and a few more for the bolt circle. I'd have to file a bit behind the crank arm, where the mill cannot reach. Think I should try? There's a grungy orphaned drive-side Silstar on Ebay I could pick up for $32ish, but it seems a little much to be throwing at an idea that may or may not work depending on the crank's geometry, which I cannot just go and measure.

Interesting idea. Might mean a second life for nice cranks with an obscure BCD that would otherwise be sitting at the bottom of the parts bin for the next hundred years.

Ooh, yeah, you're right!

I think that Silstar I was eyeing is a 118 BCD. It is listed as 120 but I recall some old SR cranks coming in 118 and they are close.

[MENTION=197010]scarlson[/MENTION], I have a couple of orphan drive-side cranks hanging in my basement, but should it be a particular bcd so that you have material to work with?

Hey, thanks for thinking of me! I would have to see 'em to be sure. I mean, the bigger the "web" between the arms is, the better chance this has of working. But there are other factors at play as well. I'll have to measure the hole in the middle of a 5-Vis chainring to see what the minimum "step" diameter is. Big nono would be any arms with holes in them, or cranks that aren't 5-arm. But what I really like for myself is 165 length.

A relevant piece of artwork:

I've thought about cutting 144, 130, even 110 mm bcd cranks down to 86 mm bcd. The main obstacle with newer cranks is that there is usually not much material at the back of the crank. Swaged cranks seem like a better bet than forged cranks.

This thread has taught me a lot of stuff I thought I already knew. The amount of knowledge in here never ceases to humble me. Thanks to all contributors.

Good ol' Fifi!

Here are the two orphan Frenchies hanging in my basement:

Find this 50.4 steel cottered crank in my stash. Nicklin?

maybe I'm just curious because I use Fifi as my avatar, but what was the story on the use of this little cartoon guy as T.A.'s mascot?? I've only been exposed to him in T.A.'s literature since the 70's.

Steve in Peoria

The inscription "Rosa" and the riveted inner ring certainly suggest that. Paging [MENTION=432011]ReidH[/MENTION] ...

Schauff tandem, I pictured (you can tell by the quality) in 2016 in Ghent.

Spotted at a jumble sale in Belgium:

I love TA so much that they were the inspiration for my logo:



With the nearly limitless chainring combinations for 50.4 BCD cranks, I just keep a stash of rings in my collection and can usually come up with any combination I need for a given build. Also, they have a low Q-factor, which seems to work well with my physique.

at what point did the light bulb turn on and the idea for the logo develop? I have to admit, I do think it is clever.

I think I was primarily a fan of their water bottle cages, especially the handlebar cage. I've still got them on 3 bikes!



I purchased stuff from the Cyclo-Pedia catalog way back when, and the pages showing the T.A. cranks always looked so great! I loved the idea that you could build just about anything out of the Cyclo-Touriste crank, albeit with a ton of little nuts and bolts. Still, that emotional attachment was created, and I stole borrowed their mascot Fifi as my avatar. I'm still waiting to hear the story of Fifi and how this little kid became the company mascot.

A couple of years ago, I did finally buy the SunXCD clone of the Cyclo-Tourist, and it's made a fine compact crankset. At least it has real T.A. chainrings.



Steve in Peoria

Steve, the "lightbulb moment" happened a number of years back when I was helping Peter Weigle with the wiring of some of his bikes. He had been using his own milled battery-powered seat tube taillights on his builds and didn't have to run wiring other than at the fork for the headlight. But more of his customers were requesting full dynamo lighting so he was sending the frames to me to wire up. At one point, he suggested I make a logo to slap on the bikes that I wire up. I hadn't given any thought to the idea of "branding" what I do until then. At some point after that, I was looking at a TA logo and saw my initials in it... et voila! But when I started a website I couldn't use it because no one (including myself) knew how to pronounce the made up word "Electricalites". (Is it "Electrical-lights"? or "ElectriCAL-iTAYS"). And what the hell does it even mean? So I gave up and came up with Velo Lumino which no one has trouble spelling or pronouncing. Also, our own mkeller234 did the graphic design for both Electricalites AT and Velo Lumino!

i picked these up on a bike a few weeks ago. Havent polished them, and probably won't. They are in great shape. Rings are 52, 42, 30.

I have two bikes that make use of this BCD. Great looks IMO, and of course great versatility. Not much more to add to the thread besides more pics.

49d arms with modern TA 50/28 rings:



49d arms with SunXCD ramped and pinned 46/30 rings:



[MENTION=324747]Stevensb[/MENTION] here’s a full shot of the Woodrup:

Looking back through this thread I found this loose end which deserves a response. These tandems were designed by Jan Groot and/or his son Frank. The higher end "Strada" model was built to measure by themselves, and this more budget-friendly "Populair" version was farmed out to a Belgian outfit and came in standard sizes. However, you could order the Populair in any combination of sizes as well, as long as you were prepared to accept a longer lead time. Which was apparently just what the previous owner of our tandem did.

Both versions were based on the same design, and in the picture of the Strada below you can see how the brake set-up was designed. Our tandem also features the braze-ons for that third brake, but it wasn't installed when I bought it, and I never bothered to add it, as out country is as flat as a pancake.