2 days! Who's ready for Paris-Roubaix? This guy right here

Just in case you hadn't noticed, I have a couple of topics I seem to write about. I'm clearly a Mavic junkie, a super-fan of late 80's/early 90's racing, and a pave obsessive. Most roadies cringe when you say Rock Shox, but I get all excited at the thought of suspension on cobbles.

So when an insane opportunity arose to merge all of those in to one project emerged, I couldn't say no.

What we have here is the nexus of all the things that get me excited in a bike. Lemond Team GAN, decked out about as close as possible to the bike Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle rode the latter portion of 1994's edition of Paris-Roubaix.

In 1994, GAN was sponsored by Mavic, and rode the Zap electronic shifters in some events - or at least, tried to. As you can see here, Lemond was riding Zap at least a little during the spring classics.

I'm not going to make any assumptions about why, but they did NOT ride Zap in Paris-Roubaix (and, in fact, in a lot of other races as well...but thats a different topic). Instead they rode a mixed drivetrain - the crank was a Mavic 631/2, the 862 front derailleur, and 571/2 front and rear hubs. For shifters, they used Campagnolo's Record Ergopower shifters, along with a Record rear derailleur. The 571/2 would likely have had a Campagnolo Exa Drive body on it, though it could also have been a custom spaced Mavic proprietary cassette.

Up front, they were riding Rock Shox Paris-Roubaix SL forks. Mavic 451 brakes. Cinelli bars and stems - Duclos-Lassalle rode Criterium bars (yes, with Ergopower). They used a variety of stems on the bikes, including the Oyster and the 101.

Selle San Marco saddles - some Rolls, some Regals, and some Titanios. Selcof posts.

Obviously, a few liberties were taken in building the bike. I'm in no way scared of tubulars, but I AM scared of the price tag associated with Mavic Paris-Roubaix rims. Tracking down the 1994 version of the Record Ergopowers proved something of a pain, so I acquiesced and went with a set of 1995 Chorus levers - identical to the Records of the prior year, save some cutouts in the lever. There are a few other things I know are wrong, but I'll leave it to the astute - and annoying - reader to nitpick on my project.

I'll be riding this bike Sunday, April 11 in the Brooklyn Pavé ride. It's a ride around Brooklyn, hitting some of the handful of cobbled streets that still remain. It starts at the Old Stone House in Park Slope (4th St. + 5th Ave) at 1pm - we roll out at 2. Please note - this is a friendly little ride not affiliated with any responsible entity. If the rider has a flat or breaks a fork or gets socked by Bernard Hinault, we'll help out but we're not culpable. Moderate pace over some pretty bumpy roads - you'll feel 'em way more than I will, what with my suspension fork - so nerves, or at least an ass of steel recommended. Email me (upper right corner of this page!) for additional info.

VeloNews July 1994 - Rock Shox and Campagnolo

My scanner is really terrible at handling large format documents. It only fits up to legal size, so that made it a little hard to scan in this latest batch of stuff. I apologize for the crude re-piecing of the first page - hopefully everything is still readable without inducing a migraine.

It's pretty obvious I'm on an early 90's tech kick at the moment (and, I suppose, the last 4+ years of this blog). Some stuff survived this transitional period, some didn't. The scans below cover 2 items, one of which fizzled out, and one that talks about the comeback of Campagnolo. From the July 11, 1994 VeloNews, Maximizing use of your Rock Shox and Campagnolo: An Italian renaissance. Read on!

No, no, I'm not going to start talking about vintage MTB stuff. The Mag-21 IS almost identical internally to the Paris-Roubaix, however, and tuning is a pretty similar experience.

Little article on Campy's comeback as well...

Ready to tune your Paris-Roubaix now? Whaddya mean you don't have one?!

Sorry, the crappy scanner necessitated chopping the very top of Indurain's TT bike.

Full suspension at Paris-Roubaix

The last couple of years have seen some vendors slowly introducing shock-absorbing materials in to road bikes available to the public. It seems like quite often, these bikes are first seen in public during Paris-Roubaix. A big deal was made of Hincapie's 2005 soft tail Trek, even though that bike design never was made available to the public. Far more successful are some of the dampening technologies, like Specialized's Zertz inserts, which are available in all sorts of bikes in their lineup. Every article that mentions these bikes, without fail, mentions the widespread adoption of Rock Shox forks by riders in Paris-Roubaix in the early 90's, and how Museeuw used a full suspension Bianchi in 1994.

There were actually a few others that were tried as well. An interview for France 2, with Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle and Greg Lemond gave us some interesting glimpses at a full suspension rig they both used for at least part of PR in 1994.

Full suspension Lemond front-end. Note the Grip Shift adjustment knob for the rear shock...

According to the information in the bottome part of the article here, these bikes were built by Clark-Kent, in Denver CO out of Titanium. The recollections in the article are, unfortunately, a little flawed - Duclos-Lassalle finished first in 1992 and 1993, and came in 7th in 1994.

Duclos-Lassalle was off this bike, and on to a Excell tubed Lemond within the first 1/3 of the race that day. Why, we don't know. I think its fair to assume something as simple as a flat that early in the race wouldn't necessitate a bike change - and given that watching 1994 footage closely suggests he changed bikes again in the latter half of the race, to another Excell tubed frame, makes it unlikely whatever went wrong was easily fixed.

Check out that crazy rear suspension system - reminds me of the Moots YBB soft tail.

This scanned clipping over at the Mombat site gives a closeup of a Lemond that looks very similar to the one shown in the interview - it doesn't appear to be the same frame, but its probably fairly similar. Air/Oil shock? Or maybe the white thing in the picture above is some sort of elastomer?

Requisite Rock Shox Paris-Roubaix. Mavic 451 brake.

Potential technical issues aside, looks like a very cool ride, and I'd certainly like to know where any of these ended up after the race.

1993's prices...

Ever wonder what the stuff you collect now cost back in the day? It's not too terribly difficult to find vendor catalog scans with a Google search, but finding catalogs from bike stores is a little harder.

Fortunately for us, Harry is a pack rat like no other, and gave me a 16 year old Colorado Cyclist catalog. Here are a couple of scans - 2 pages of Merckx bikes, and their Campagnolo Record, Suntour Superbe Pro, Shimano Dura Ace and Mavic component pages. I think its safe to say that the lamentation of "if I knew then what I know now, I would have bought 100 Mavic headsets" is bunk; very few of the items sell now for as much as they sold for then.

Campagnolo Record, Chorus, Athena, Veloce and Mavic


Shimano Dura Ace, Ultegra, 105 and Suntour Superbe


Merckx MX Leader and Century


Corsa Extra and Corsa

Urban legends, and things I was right to believe in...

If you ever hear an urban legend about a kid who cut off his nose with garden shears, that is categorically true - I went to junior high with that kid. At the time I thought it was hilarious. Still sorta do...

And much like the garden shears kid, every once in a while something that people thought was an urban legend turns out to be true.

A month or so ago, I saw this on eBay:

It's a 571/2 hub...ED? I had previously seen hubs marked 571/2, and 571/2 HG - HG being, of course, hubs with Shimano's cassette splines, instead of the Mavic proprietary type. This particular hub has a serial indicating its from 1995.

Through a roundabout series of purchases and ultimately a trade with Harry, I ended up with the 571/2 ED. When I got it out of the box and took a look, though, I was dismayed to see the Mavic spline pattern on the cassette body.

It's worth noting that the Mavic proprietary cassette came in 2 flavors. With the 571 hub, the outermost cog was threaded, much like Shimano's Ultraglide (UG) cassette. With the 571/2, Mavic went to a lockring setup, like Hyperglide (HG). If you're ever looking for Mavic cassettes, be aware of the difference. The spline patterns are the same, however, so you can adapt a 571 cassette to work on a 571/2 if you can source a correct 8th cog and lockring

For a long time, I had believed that Mavic made an Exa Drive version of the 571/2. So once I saw the hub marked ED, I decided to consult my primary materials to see if it was true. Turns out, I couldn't find any evidence that it existed. Chuck Schmidt over at Velo-Retro sells a phenomenal collection of Mavic catalog reprints, and it wasn't in there. I checked magazines that had information about the 571/2. I read about ZMS. I read about Mektronic. They all mentioned that HG was available, but no mention of ED. Maybe the early Cosmic wheel set, that used the same cassette mechanism as the 571? No dice.

Moving right along. I thought I had captured my Moby Dick, but it turned out I had a normal Mavic splined 571/2 hub, with a weird ED marking on the model band. Facing facts, I came to the conclusion that I was wrong - no Exa Drive 571. Just what was this ED marking though? Electronic Drive, marking it as part of the Mektronic group? That didn't sit well with me, especially since Mektronic was designed to work with Shimano (and Mavic) cassette spacing.

So it stood. Until I spied something weird in an eBay listing from France.

The thing that piqued my curiosity was that, based on what I would see, the splines looked weird for Shimano. They had a trapezoidal quality to them, and based on wishful thinking, I counted 8 splines. Shimano HG has 9.

Sure enough, when I received it, my suspicions were proven correct. 8 splines, undercut a little. EXA DRIVE.

Seperated at birth?

The Mavic sponsored GAN team sometimes rode an odd combination of components in 1993 and 1994. Mavic brakes, cranks, front derailleurs and wheels, with Ergopower brifters and a Record rear derailleur. Were they using the 571 or 571/2 rear hub when they rode that setup? There are a few ways to pull that off - respacing a Mavic or Shimano cassette being the easiest other than just using a Record rear hub. Is it possible they were using an Exa-Drive body like the one I now have?

I can't say for sure this is de facto evidence that Mavic produced an Exa-Drive 571/2 for the public, and marked it as a 571/2 ED - though I certainly think they did. But if anyone tells you that either the pruning shears story OR the existence of a Campagnolo body for the 571/2 is total bullshit, send them my way.

Ergopower 1992 (in italiano)

Ergopower was introduced by Campagnolo in 1992. For the 2 prior years, Campagnolo was without an answer to the rising popularity of Shimano's STI. The benefits of being able to shift without removing your hands from your bars were undeniable.

People always talk about how poorly Campagnolo was executing in the late 80's and early 90's. Ergopower helped bring them in to the modern era, and really helped them get out of the funk they were in.

Below is the Italian version of the 1992 Ergopower catalog. I've added the english catalog's text below each of the pages, so those of us who can't read italian can follow along.

Indexed control levers for front and 8-speed rear derailleur, interfaced with the brake levers.

Maximum safety system for total control of the bike without removing the hands from the handlebar.

Ergonomically designed down to the smallest details, with extremely comfortable lever grip.

Total absence of over shift to obtain fast and precise shifting in every gear position.

Possibility to shift down 8 gears in succession in a single movement or to shift up one or two speeds.

Very reduced weight.

Complete freedom of movement due to the internal passage of cables, considerably enhancing appearance as well.


The front derailleur levers can be shifted one position at a time so as to align the front derailleur cage with the chain.

Optimum braking system with incorporated quick release opening system.

Adjusting barrel on frame boss allows fine tuning while riding the bicycle.

Maximum protection of internal mechanism so that operation is unaffected by blows or falls.

Absolute reliability due to the use of high-quality materials developed through new technologies for heat and surface treatments

The Ergopower System is set up for the use of triple cranksets.

Maximum ease of installation and adjustment.


ERGOPOWER TSC: Total Shifting Control
These revolutionary integrated controls for the braking and derailleur systems provide the ideal ergonomic and functional solution for meeting every individual requirement in any field, athletic or amateur.

Maximum reliability of the ERGOPOWER TSC system is obtained thanks to the perfect symbiosis of the multi-functional transmission systems which Campagnolo has developed thanks to scrupulous technological research.

Ergopower TSC has been designed to work with all Campagnolo 8-speed rear derailleurs, whether for the road or off-road. THe articulated parallelograms of Campagnolo rear derailleurs both with pulleys using adjustable bearings and pulleys using bushings, permit fast precise shifting in every situation. Along with the traditional front derailleurs in Campagnolo's road range, Ergopower TSC can also be used with triple crankset versions.

All Campagnolo cranksets can be used with Ergopower TSC, including the Compact sports version for off-road.
The maximum precision in machining the chainrings ensures perfect engagement with the chain for fast precise derailleur operation.

The new cassette hub for 8 speed freewheel is ideal for sports uses. The appropriately dimensioned axle moving on 4 bearings ensures superior performance in all circumstances.

The 8 sprockets with triple-profile teeth make shifting easy, even under stress, without any margin of error.

All of this is obtained with unequalled lightness thanks to the new Contax chain, the narrowest available today, and to the high precision of the Ergopower TSC control levers.