rootboy 

No. Take them off ! But ....you'll put yer eye out.

Chombi

Just like the SSC Mavic FDs from the 80's....yeah,....you can rebuild them.....if you ever figure out how to take off and put back that strong pivot spring on it while trying to screw and unscrew the nut on the end of the pivot bolt.......while killing your fingers trying to compress the spring ends......Yeah...... easy-peasy


Chombi

sailorbenjamin

Even Kurt is selling out.
I like them cause they'll take a 9 speed cassette and the Jubilee will only do 8.

Of course my daily ride is just a 7 speed with a Suntour somethingorother GT.

bikemig 

Yeah but I bet the Jubilee will index on 8 and the NR won't index on 9 . . . .

oldbobcat

Huret Jubilee was a neat derailleur, but its range was rather limited. It was popular for British style time trial setups and other weight-weenie applications.

The other Huret derailleur that worked reasonably well was the Svelto. It's ironic that Huret's best units were the unconventional ones. The abominable Allvit and Luxe were designed for the jockey wheel to follow the taper of the freewheel by mounting the parallelogram upside-down at the bottom of a rigid arm hanging from the dropout.

For the most part, European rear derailleurs from this period were copies of Record and Gran Sport. The only unit that offered a significant performance improvement, the Sun Tour Cyclone, had a patent on its key feature, the slant parallelogram.

kc0yef 

Kool Aid

sailorbenjamin

I'll have to try. Will Shimano 8 speed levers work with the Jubi?

Bikedued

Move some spacers from the drive side to the non, and redish the wheel. Instant nine speed Jubilee! Seriously, that's a LOT of room between the last gear, and the dropout?

I like the way NR looks well enough, but I cannot stand how finicky the shifting is. You have to hit it spot on or it's chattering. Cyclone drops into gear(up and down) with ease.,,,,BD

dddd

"Move some spacers from the drive side to the non, and redish the wheel. Instant nine speed Jubilee! Seriously, that's a LOT of room between the last gear, and the dropout?"

It does look like about 10 or 11mm from the inside face of the dropout and the outer face of the small cog.

I've found that you only need 3.5mm from the cog to the dropout, as long as the cog is small enough to let the chain clear the end of the seat stay and as long as the chain is 8-speed or narrower.
I always assemble axles to that length on the drive side, so as to increase wheel and axle strength.

That poor NR derailer is really reaching in, due to the claw hanger for one, plus the extra alxle length AND the relatively large cassette diameter. I'm surprised it clears low gear, since the parallelogram is oriented opposite from a Huret Allvit and so reduces the chain gap.

Sixty Fiver

Am in the process of refitting my Ron Cooper in some period correct NR... am running a close ratio Regina 7 speed and the NR loves this. The change from Cyclone Mk2 parts means I downgraded my front d and added a few grams.

Crank is presently a Sugino and think I will fit a Stronglight double and keep my Zeus centre pulls... I really like stopping this well.

Bikedued

The only reason that popped into my head was that I ran into the same problem on a 71 Super Course. The stock derailleur was nearly halfway extended by the time it reached the small cog. Once it got nearer the biggest gear, the shifter was pointing sharply to the rear. I fixed the axle spacing and it finally reached all of the gears, Unfortunately though, it was still the stock derailleur.,,,,BD

smontanaro 

Right. I rode Italvega and Masi bikes in the 70s, all with NR. Never knew how bad I had it. Fast forward to the mid-80s after a gap of several years in my bike addiction, and I bought a Trek with SunTour Superbe components. A few years later I swapped out the rear derailleur for a NR found on eBay. That change didn't last long.

Fast forward even further to about today, and a bikey friend at work shakes his head when he sees me buying Masi and Bianchi iron, both with SR or NR derailleurs, and obviously no index shifting. He thinks I'm nuts, but I know better. Now, on my Madone I sometimes reach for the levers on the downtube to shift and grab thin air. On my Masi I sometimes try to tap my levers to shift. The solution is obviously to sell the Madone so as not to continue to confuse my remaining neurons.

I just bought a bare Medici frame (probably '77 or '78 based on the serial number). My current plans are to build it up with old Superbe components.

S

noglider 

Reliability, yes, and also durability. The most crashworthy stuff ever. I worked as a bike mechanic in NR's heyday. I fixed lots of problems that resulted from crashes. You don't appreciate the merits of this stuff until you weigh in how it holds up to heavy use.

And let's get specific about performance. What performs badly?

The RD doesn't always shift quickly or precisely but it shifts under heavy loads! And it is tough as a rock!

FD flawless.

Pedals tough as rocks. You have to like quill or track pedals, though.

BB another rock. Extremely durable.

Headset is touchy. If you install it in a milled and faced frame and fork, it will be precise and durable, and it will offer very low friction. But imprecise installation will give a short service life.

The cranks are flawed. They have a tendency to break but only for strong or tall riders. I feel safe with mine.

The brakes are excellent and misunderstood. Comparing them with modern brakes, people try them by squeezing the levers lightly, because that's adequate for modern brakes. You have to squeeze them hard. But they will stop as well as anything. It helps to have large and strong hands. Modulation is unbeaten because leverage is low, which is also the reason you have to apply so much force. But they are excellent and also super durable. Levers are excellent, too.

rootboy 

Thanks. I've since found some black Binda straps , but I've got to put the little orange REG "pills' back on.

bikingshearer 

I never had any NR stuff back in the day because I was young and didn't have the cash. First-gen Dura Ace derailleurs (yes, I know the rear was called the "Crane") and cranks, Mafac Competition brakes, Cinelli #3 saddle and pretty much whatever I could cobble to gether for the rest.

But I now have NR brakes on my '78 Eisentraut (no modern Campy brakes are long enough), and I am pleased with them. I pull on Campy Ergo 10-speed brifters to pull the calipers to push Matthauser brake blocks (in the original Campy brake pad holders), and they work just fine. Yes, I have to pull a bit harder than I do with dual pivots on my other bikes, but the NRs get the job done with no problems. I am 6'3" and 275#, and I live in a hilly area. I was a tad skeptical about this set-up at first, but no longer am.

I attribute some of the good performance to modern levers with their better leverage, some to the inherently good design and build of the NR brakes (40+ years on and still in great shape), and quite a bit to the vast improvement in brake pads represented by Matthauser and its successors. (I noticed an amazing difference in braking power on a pair of Dia Compe sidepull Weinmann copies going from the original pads to Kool Stops.) The NR RD may no longer be able to keep up (but Lordy, it sure is gorgeous) but the NR sidepulls still can.

Road Fan

Back in the late '60s there really wasn't anything to compete with Campy for quality, performance, reliability, and beauty, except for a few French pieces that were rare and odd even then. And they weren't winning. Campy was actually the real leader. Early in the '70s DuraAce came on the scene, SunTour grew from good cheap stuff to really fine stuff, and Shimano broadened it's line to include the high-value 600. Campy stayed with NR, made refinements to generate SR, and tried at times to compete with price-compatible stuff that really wasn't as good as NR. By the early '80s it was easy to get a very nice sleek-looking 600 gruppo for way less than the long-in the tooth NR or SR, that worked no better than ever but carried it's excellent racing heritage. So those of us with late '60s experience know NR from a different point of view than those of us who know Campy mainly from the early '80s when SunTour and Shimano were well-developed.

Yes, there was cachet. Campy didn't advertise enough to say there was hype. They earned a reputation, then the Japanese companies competed in a somewhat different market sector: the higher end consumer and the increasingly popular tourist and sport-tourist, not the professional racing team, or the gotta-have-the-best consumer.

So one may criticize Campy for not beating Shimano at its game, but keep in mind it took perhaps 30 years of competition for Shimano to draw even with Campy in the pro peleton, and beat (well, maybe) Campy at its game. And recall that Campy created that game - selling complete state of the art racing gruppi to the pro peleton.

I still like the Kool-aid.

Chombi

NR RDs shifted OK, but I do have to admit thst it required more overshift action at the lever than any other RD I ever used, so it was like shifting a truck, while my Cyclone MkII and Superbe Pro RDs shifted like sport car transmissions.

Chombi

jimmuller 

The NR RD with Henry III's long cage that I put on my Masi doesn't shift quite as well as the Cyclone on my Bianchi, but it shifts well enough. And it looks great. Of course, the Cyclone looks great too.

sailorbenjamin

Well actually the Jubilee is on a forged dropout with an integral hanger and the wheel is spaced a little more carefully. Still won't hack it.
I should work on that spacing on the red bike, though.

OldsCOOL

You have well described the Allvit but I could never figure out what it was designed for other than real clunky and slow shifting on my '72 Mirage.

element-82

That scares me. I have NR cranks with sr chain rings on my PX10. I was more worried about the slender chain rings, until i saw this :-(
6'5, 200lbs, I go through a bb and free hub each season on a recumbent. I will have to play it my ear i guess.

Pb

Michael Angelo 

I'm 6'3" 215LBs. Have Four bikes with NR/SR cranks of varying lengths. Never had a problem.

spurious

I don't get the hype either. Its pretty, but, it shifts poor.

As for reliability, well put it this way, I've suntours of the same vintage and they still shift better then the NR. Its very agricultural compared to a Cyclone. Plus the short cage Cyclone looks way nicer with the black lettering IMO.

LAriverRat

All i know is that i could put my 71 NR rd on flea bay(it came with a 71 sports tourer and is practically new) and watch the bidding begin.

repechage

Yes you could. But won't as it is so pretty.