Charles Wahl

On a whim, I bought some Simplex shifters on eBay. They are singles: rear derailer only, with band clamps. They have the old-style handles, and an adjustment screw on the underside, which leads me to believe that they were for bikes made in the 70s. Anyone know what sort of bike would take a shifter like this? Probably one with no front derailer?

I got four of these, with cables no less.

karmat

No idea... cool find, though!

Karl

spider-man

Three things come to mind:

* I have seen some city-type bikes with a rear derailleur only. Specific examples elude me in my old age.

* Some bicycles sporting front and rear derailleurs used a rod-operated front mech. and a cable-operated rear. That would push the estimated date of your Simplexes at least a couple of decades earlier, though.

* Could it be a '70s cyclocross thing?

USAZorro

Some models of Peugeot came that way in the 70's. I don't recall whether there was no front derailleur, or whether the FD shifter was on a boss.

sailorbenjamin

I had a '72 Pug mixte that had one shifter braze on. The shifter clamp had the other one built in and sort of went around the braze on one. They used that frame for 5 and 10 speeds I guess.

I had a Mercier from about 1970 with just a rear derailleur, Simplex, of course.

Then I have a 1980ish ladies Raliegh, same thing.

balindamood

I have worked on a number of late '60's to early 70's french bikes which have a single frame boss for a shifter, and the other has a band/clap which goes under the boss-mounted shifter. It's kind strange, but most brands offered at least one 5-speed model (with fenders and upright handlebars) at that time.

My inclination is that this is a stupid French concept, as most of the ones I can recall seeing are Simplex. However, I do have a '73 Raleigh Sprite 5-Speed hanging in the barn (by chance next to a '72 Peugeot UE-8) which I think is a similar design, but it is not Simplex. I might be inclined to go take a peak one of these days.

Grand Bois

This is one of the odd Simplex clamp on shifter mounts that fits a French bike with a single boss. Unfortunately, your Retrofrictions wll not fit the single boss. The diameter of the post is too large.



My PA10 is a SS/FG, so I use the single boss as a bell mount. The threading is wrong, so I had to silver solder on a stud with the correct threads. The stud is actually one of the shifter bolts with the head cut off.

Charles Wahl

Here are photos; I should have started with those, but I was too lazy last night:





As people have posted about the clamp-on ones before, they won't fit on a Campy-standard braze-on. The boss diameter is 8 mm rather than the Campy 10 mm, though the measurement across the flats is the same (6 mm).

These appear to be NOS, never used, though they are a bit dirty -- cables all appear to be unfrayed. I doubt that I can ever use all four of them, even though I'm inclined lately to simplify things for the kind of riding I do, and getting rid of a FD and one chainring seems to fit in with that. If anyone has a project that these would serve for, PM me. Bear in mind that the clamps were intended for a French-size downtube, which is a bit smaller than everyone else's.

Weasel9

I had an old Peugeot that was some sort of early 70's model, and it had what dirtdrop posted. A single clamp-on boss, and a hole in the clamp for the brazed-on boss on the frame. Pretty odd, I still can't imagine what the advantage of that is.

I haven't seen one like yours before, Charles. They look pretty nice! My Cyclocross bike only has a rear derailleur. 6 speeds, I quite like it that way.

Grand Bois

I've never seen retrofrictions with an adjustment screw at the bottom of the shifter like that. My early shifters have that protrusion at the bottom, but no provision for a screw. Yours must be even earlier.

Charles Wahl

Which brings up the question: when were Simplex retrofriction shifters introduced? The auction said "50s," but I did not believe that.

I'm not sure what the purpose of the screw is: simply to hold the end of the spring in place, or for some minimal amount of adjustment? The slot is only about 2.5 mm wide, and if the screw isn't pressing the end of the spring against the other side of the slot (as they all came) that just means that there's slop between the action of the lever in one direction, and action in the other direction, spring-wise. I don't know why that would be a "feature."

Grand Bois

Chris Kulczycki says in the Velo Orange blog that the SLJ derailer was introduced in 1972 and the first Retrofriction shifter came a year later. I would have guessed a few years later, but Chris knows more about French bikes than I ever will.

RobbieTunes

My mixte had that setup, a braze-on RD shifter, and a chrome clamp that fit around it and the downtube and held the FD shifter. I figured it lent flexibility to someone who just didn't want that plunger-type FD.

Charles Wahl

The ones I have are opposite-hand -- band clamp for RD, not FD..

Mike01

Well, I donīt know for sure, but this type of shifter could be used on a TT machine as well, one that has only a rear derailleur. No too uncommon specially among British builders.

Oldpeddaller

I'm no expert on these shifters, but to me they look like simple single levers for bikes with a single chain ring. Back in the '60's and '70's many standard model bikes had this - with a five speed freewheel block, giving five gears. If you had a bit more to spend you could buy the ten speed version, with double levers, a front derailleur and twin chain rings. My first "racing" bike was a five-speed Appollo with a single lever, but within a few weeks I'd made it into a ten speed!

bluenote157

I had a peugeot UO8 and a mercier from around teh same time. Both had clamp on shifters. I want to say that the UO8 had a braze on for the right and the clamp accomodated the left one. It was definitely weird. Maybe it was a mid-production thing. Did front derailleurs come after rear ones??