Spoke length calculator.
 

Some of you may remember this "slide rule" style early spoke calculator.

This one dates from 1980, was sold by the British cycle goods vendor Ron Kitching, and is based on the "Sutherlands Handbook for Bicycle Mechanics" calcualtions. After the earlier thread referring to the various online spoke calculating tools (one of which I usually refer to), I decided to pull this out of my archives... and to my surprise it works just fine. :D

Will not measure down to 10ths or 100ths of a mm., but neither do my spokes.
Notice on the back side (photo 2) the names of the most common rims sold back then.

- Too much Retro fun! :lol:


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2308/...363ef016_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2324/...8d266048_o.jpg

Note how 26" (ERTO 559) rims do not dominate the card.

In 1980 they were paperboy tires.

By 1984 they had taken the bike market by storm.

I feel vintage.

I love this sort of thing. If it's not asking too much, Stronglight Bob, could you please remove the insert and photograph it too (both sides if it's printed two sides). That way I could rescale it and make an actual-size replica. If you have higher-resolution images and could make those available, that would help too.