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greyhundguy

Attached is a photo of Simplex Criterium shift levers. It is my understanding that the one on the left (wing logo) is an early version. Does anyone know the timeline between/for the two logos?

Jay...not wanting to shift too early on a project

verktyg

Jay,

The winged lever on the left is the earlier design, but read on.

These metal shift levers originally came with the "premium" Criterium derailleur ensembles.

The Prestige derailleurs used these cheap plastic levers until the mid 70s. Rolling Eyes

The plastic capped aluminum levers came out in the mid 1960s and were
produced with a chrome plated aluminum, polished aluminum and a plain tumbled finish.

The later levers have a shoulder where the plastic ends. That was probably incorporated to keep the plastic from sliding down the lever and splitting apart at the top. I've seen several old levers where that happened.

I looked over all of my Simplex levers like these. The oldest ones that I feel pretty sure about are on my 1967 all original PX-10. They look like the lever on the left with the winged logo but they're chrome plated without the shoulder and the clamp strap is also chrome plated.

My recently acquired all original 1971 TdF has the "S" in a circle logo like on the newer lever pictured above so when was the change from the winged logo???

Here's the fly in the ointment: during the US Bike Boom Simplex couldn't keep up with the export demand so for several years they manufactured some derailleurs in Italy. They also wanted a bigger share of the Italian market.

The only Italian Simplex derailleurs that I saw were the Prestige models. They came on some entry level Atala, Bergamo and other fly by night Italian brands.

I guess that the Italians refused to accept the plastic Simplex shift levers so these bikes came with the plastic capped aluminum levers like on the left. These levers had the winged logo. They also had the raised winged logo on the band like pictured in the second photo below.

The way that you could identify these levers was the aluminum was a dull tumbled finish and the steel parts were cadmium instead of chrome plated.

These pictures show some of the variations on the aluminum Simplex levers. Notice the different logos on the straps.

I have a 1979 Bertin with the levers in the picture above. It has Simplex SX610 and SXA32 derailleurs. Notice the "aerodynamic" or are they "ergonomic" wing nuts.

Chas.

greyhundguy

Thanks Chas.
When I dismantled, to clean them, I detected a lighter feel to the Lever. Upon weighing, I found that the 'Early' lever weighed 13 grams, and the 'Later' 30 grams. A dramatic difference. After weighing the COMPLETE units (levers and all mounting Hardware) the weight was 72 grams vs. 107 grams.
Also, the finsh washer directly behind the wing nut is made of light alloy, not a metal stamping as on the later version.
Jay

verktyg

Jay,

That's interesting. I've never seen that before. I wonder if Simplex may have used some other metal than aluminum in some of the chrome plated levers.

Simplex was SOooo flaky with their product designations... Originally the Prestige ensemble was the better quality (P for professional) and the Criterium components were the pedestrian versions.

Old Lucien Juy was so enamored with Delrin, he had to be a great fan of Jerry Lewis... Laughing

greyhundguy

Chas.,
The 'Early' Levers are UNchromed or UNanodized Alloy as are the washers (they polished up easily). The 'Later' levers, a heavier Base metal (?) are chromed.

Jay

verktyg

Jay,

I went through a bunch of old Simplex metal levers and you're right, most of them have the aluminum washers. I also checked out the chrome plated levers, they may be made of Zamak, a zinc/aluminum alloy also know and [i]Pot Metal.

The other thing that I remembered when I went through my parts bone yard, the Italian made Simplex levers used screws instead of plastic wing nuts for adjusting the lever tension.

I just received a set of Simplex Criterium levers from France. They were supposed to be NOS but they've been used.

You're right again, they are heavier than the polished aluminum levers.

Funny, back in the day, we looked down our noses at the the Delrin Simplex derailleurs and Mafac brakes. They took longer than Suntour and Weinmann components to setup and get working properly. Now that I have all of these Simplex/Mafac equipped bikes, I have to go back to long forgotten tricks to get them dialed in. Confused

History Note:

"... in 1962, Simplex converted their production line to "industrial resin" (specifically Delrin plastic). Simplex had a long-term working relationship with Peugeot, who did much of the engineering for the conversion to Delrin."

and...

"Withe 20-20 hindsight Lucien Juy's decision to make Simplex derailleurs from Delrin doomed the company. No matter what they did afterward, the Simplex name had become synonymous with cheap plastic trash."

Excepts from "The Dancing Chain" by Frank Berto

Lucien Juy, the founder of Simplex, must have been enthralled by Jerry Lewis too! Rolling Eyes

"I want to say one word to you. Just one word."
"Yes sir."
"Are you listening?"
"Yes, I am."
"Plastics"

From the movie "The Graduate" Laughing

Chas.

greyhundguy

...for several weeks.
Chas.,
I was going through a 1972 Wheel Goods Catalog that I bought and there they were, the 'Wing Logo' Criterium shifters. BUT, the '72 Catalog is a reprint of an earlier year with the addition of a "New items" section. AND, what shows up in the "New" section?...the Criterium shifters with the 'Circle S Logo'. So it seems that the 'Wing Logo' was 1971 and earlier but possibly still available as older stock in '72. The Wholesale cost, $3.25 in '72.

Jay...now shifting in the right time frame

verktyg

Jay,

Back in the day before Macs and PCs, most commercial graphics were done using the "Cut and Paste" method. That meant cutting out pictures and/or text with scissors or an Exacto knife and pasting them to a layout sheet with rubber cement. Letraset was used for fancy text and Screentone for backgrounds.

People who did this work were generally called Layout Artists. It was a very labor intensive job and layout folks who were fast and accurate could make a lot of money. Computer graphics programs really aided that industry.

I learned to do Cut and Paste layouts so that I could do the advertising for our bike shop. We put out a quarterly 4-6 page flier for our wholesale business. I had access to an IBM Selectric typewriter with about half dozen different font balls which helped for most of the text. In addition I kept a box full of bike and component catalogs and advertising flyers for cutting out pictures and text.

There was a lot of plagiarism going on in those days (unattributed text or copy being used without permission). Also it was not uncommon for layout artists to reuse parts of earlier layouts over and over. In addition to the costs for the layout, printing plates were expensive too so they tended to get reused a lot instead of being regularly updated.

Additionally, many of the people that did the layouts were totally unfamiliar with the products that they were working with so lots of errors due to that too.

Recently, I went through all of the on line classic Gitane related flyers and catalogs that I knew of. Most had errors or inconsistencies that could be attributed to all of the above stated issues.

Also factor in things lost in translation from French or Italian to English and even English English to Merkin English! Laughing

Sooo... what I'm suggesting is don't trust bike or component catalogs or publications from those days to be very accurate.

Chas. - Don't believe everything you think! Twisted Evil