CCM managed to get it right at least once. This beautiful gold plated machine really blew my kilt up. I actually got in trouble just looking at it when stuck in the Calgary airport one day shortly after 911...

To me it looks as though the wheel is dished.

There are at least two advantages to such a system (apart from the obvious one of shared and thus effectively reduced wear), though neither is much use to cyclists. With appropriate placing of the sprocket teeth one can achieve more uniform rotational speed and accuracy, and double- (and triple- etcetera) row chains can carry more power; not uncommonly used for this purpose on motor-cycles.

May be just the angle but inner chainring looks bigger that the outer. 2 extra teeth?

"Thats my kinda bike!" - Quisp

Helicomatic freewheels were a great idea that came too late but what genius decided that smaller bearings was the way to go for smaller bearings (5/32) in the hubs???

I knew a bunch of guys in the late ‘80s early ‘90s who loved these.

Wasnt the German Enigma based on this freewheel?

Here’s another bit on that story….The Disruptor is not the first auto transmission to come out of the Rodriquez shop. At the Track Nationals in Seattle in 1987, Ron Storer, I think, rode an auto transmission in the kilo event. Angel R. Did the design and build. Control mechanism was build around a Cateye solar, which had a cadence feature. Exactly how the gear changed is something I didn’t understand then or now but I saw the bike at a distance and the bike did not have a derailleur.

Storer was of course DQed for riding what was ruled to be a non fixed gear bike.

Aren’t these one or two off machines for specific events? Whilst the might be admittedly weird I’m not sure they were intended to used by the public.

These both look like hour record bikes. I wonder if there were protest about that aero crank acting like a flywheel.

that roller blade Cannondale monstrosity is just plain stupid.

BTW. Don’t forget about Suntour/Browning Automatic crank and the Mavic Zap electronic RD

Awhile back I built a 85' Bianchi Alloro , the BB was right - right threaded . Sheldon says it's wrong , I believe him .

IMG_0493 by mark westi, on Flickr

Introduced in 1983 and the weird thing is, there's no need for changing battery and they still work (as non-fixie mentioned in this thread).




The sensor-ring mounted in the frontwheel determines the speed and charges a fixed battery system.
First time I saw this was at the Tweewieler RAI of 1984 in Amsterdam. In kinda aquarium with shower heads to show this equipment was waterproof.
A great invention those days and it still fits in nowadays evironment problems.

Some early hydraulic brakes.


The brakes on this Sears are hydraulic rim brakes that have a cylinder at the top that puthas the brake arms. Both brakes were controlled by one lever.


The JcPenny bike has a very primitive hydraulic disk brake on the rear only and a normal. Cable operated brake up front.

I think that is a cable operated rear disc brake; back in the 80's I got a pair of them and brazed their mounts onto a Sekine and built a disc-braked road bike. I used a rear hub on the front as it had threads for the disc, had to braze one cone onto the axle so it would be narrow enough to fit the forks; and I turned threads on the other side of a freewheel hub for the rear disc. A bit heavy, but nobody else had such a bike - and the braking was actually better, in that there were no rim-induced variations in the brake friction.

from my understanding, the JcPenny bike had a cable that connected the brake lever to the caliper, in which the cable would operate a hydraulic piston that is on the caliper.

speaking of odd tech on cheap bikes... who else remembers the Shimano Positron indexed shifting system? The was their first indexed rear derailleur, and the indexing took place in the rear derailleur.
I think this gets discussed in The Dancing Chain, and Frank Berto thought it would have been more successful if it hadn't been introduced on the bottom of their product line-up.
Here's an advertisement from 1975.



I don't recall whether Positron commonly came with the FFS (Front Freewheel System). This had a freewheel at the crankset in addition to the usual freewheel on the rear wheel. This allowed the user to shift while coasting up to an intersection.

Steve in Peoria

Shimano 333 Automatic. Also a weird type of shifting on lower end bikes.

Corima Fox.




This weird thing.




Someone needs to explain to me why the front wheel is like that.

Battaglin Pirana, with a front wheel designed to shield the rider's legs from airflow.

If I understand what you're asking (I'm not too sure...) then, yes, it looks pretty symmetrical to me!

well, let me say that it appears that on the left side of the bike, there is a lot of axle between the hub shell and the dropout. Meanwhile... on the right side of the bike, there isn't much between the hub shell and the dropout.

When I look at the photo, it looks like the left dropout might be further from the bike's centerline in order to make space for that long bit of axle. It's possible that the left flange is actually closer to the bike's centerline, thereby allowing for a regular fork (i.e. each dropout is 50mm from centerline).

Steve in Peoria

That's a Resilion derailleur that I had on my Fothergill for a while. It was made by Philips in the early 50's and branded Resilion after the Resilion company had been bought up. It was an okay derailleur for the period, definitely not cutting edge.


That's a Philco "Central-Pull" brake that I had on my Fothergill for a while. It was made by Philips. If you had these on your bike, you could say "yes, it has brakes!" but as brakes they were pretty much useless.


That's the Trivelox B derailleur I put on after the Resilion. The Trivelox is from the mid to late 30's and though it's pretty primitive, it works quite well; good chain tension, normal-high logic (shifts to high gear when there is no cable tension), tough and not finicky. I only use it for shifting between two gears, but it can handle three (oo-we!).


And, finally, the Resilion brakes I have on the Fothergill now. These are from the early 30's. Complicated to assemble and difficult to adjust, but the braking power is excellent.

nice find

Taalking about silly early computers, i always loved the Ciclomaster II "Alti". As the name implies, it had an altimeter function. This was not done by measuring air pressure, as is common now, but worked in a mechanical way, where the *position* of some sort of pendulum was measured electronically,. elevation and climb rate were calculated based on measured speed and inclination.
I never had one but i'm told it did not work as precise as one would imagine

I object, the Osgear was ahead of its time rather than weird. As you say, it had Index, which made a return 60 years later and is now used by everyone. Also, it was extendable from 3-speed to 4 and 5 with a drill.