'90's Pro Mavic parts you've never seen - or at least never noticed

Photo by velo_denz on Flickr

The picture above comes from the 1992 Tour de France, which saw RMO's Pascal Lino spend 10 days in the Yellow Jersey before yielding to Miguel Indurain, who would go on to win his second Tour de France. Notice anything odd in a Mavic-y way?

The oddity on this bike are the front and rear derailleurs. While they look largely like the "normal" 840 rear and 860 front derailleurs, they exhibit a number of details that aren't normal. Most obvious is the lack of black anodization. The derailleurs on the RMO bike are silver - probably clear anodized. The rear derailleur also features a number of cutouts on both the front AND back of the pulley cages, likely to reduce the weight of a derailleur that was heavier than the comparable offerings from Shimano and Campagnolo at that time.

I mentioned the backside is cutout, right?

And before you go thinking the front is just a standard 810 derailleur, it's not - beside the fact they were no longer available by the late 80's, they also didn't have the Mavic logo etched in them.

These derailleurs came to me via Spain. I believe they were from an Once team bike belonging to pro Anselmo Fuerte. In the early 90's Once was sponsored by, and rode full groups from, Mavic. As far as I know, these derailleurs were never made available to the public. In 1992, Mavic was debuting the Zap system with select pro teams, and I suspect largely considered the 840/841 a product they would be able to phase out when the entire world went to their electric shifting system. That didn't happen, and the mechanical rear derailleurs continued to be available for several years, albeit in their original black anodized/cutout free form. These silver ones disappeared almost immediately from the pro ranks, as teams either switched to Zap, or switched to cobbled together drivetrains - witness Gan's Mavic/Campagnolo drivetrain from 1994.

I've known about these silver derailleurs for a few years now, but this is the first set I've seen. Anyone hiding additional sets in their spares box should feel free to contact me! :)

From the land of misfit Mavic toys...

As far as I know this doesn't really exist.

4 pawl 571 cassette rear hub. It's labeled as a 571, not 571/2. Someone's aftermarket modification? The machining quality is very high, so that seems unlikely. An experiment by Mavic at increasing the number of pawls? Beats me. Anyone seen one before?

More oddball Mavic stuff that doesn't exist coming shortly...

Mavic Technical Manual Update!

Came across a later version of the Mavic technical manual recently, so I figured I owed it to whatever readers I still have to publish the differences. This manual was from 1991 or later, and added 451 brakes, 501/531 hubs, and the 571/577 cassette hubs. You can find scans here. Enjoy!

Mid 90's Mavic Rim Finishes

These days, rims come in every color under the sun. That hasn't always been the case - at least, not in a non-bmx rim. In the mid 90's, Mavic started offering their rims in a pretty wide range of colors.

In order from top, left to right, Mavic called the colors Silver, Flash Brilliant, Titanium (or Titane), Red, Orange, Citron, Cosmic Blue, Steel Grey, Couche Dure (hard anodized) and Black.

OG indeed.

Who wants to see some rim extrusions?

Connie Paraskevin Young Merckx Pista

Someone presumably doing a little serial number research sent me these pics the other day, and I thought I'd share them with all of you. It's owner, Marc St. Martin, wrote me the following about it:

I recently purchased an Eddy Merckx pista and have confirmed with Eddy Merckx cycles (through Gitabike) that it was built in 1987 for Connie Paraskevin Young. I suspect it was used by her in the 1987 UCI Track Worlds in Austria. It was all white and equipped tout Mavic at that time. In 1988, Connie enlisted Keith Anderson (confirmed by Keith) to livery the bike as a Murray. It was then put into service late in 1988 for the Sundance Juice Sparkler series. It is serial #A 4694 A, Columbus SLX, 47cm.

Very cool! Enjoy the pics.

Thanks for sharing, Marc!