Vintage Bicycle Advertisements; good, bad. ugly...

[Mike Sales]

Most people I knew ended up buying Wonder because Ever Ready never were.

Better than NeverReady is a definition of damning with faint praise.

[Brucey]

cynics might claim that Fignon's success may have been as much to do with different sorts of 'gear' he was using (vetinary meds can be strong old stuff...) but there is an underlying truth remaining unsaid; despite various sponsorship deals and 'Team X use brand Y groupsets and equipment' the reality was that the bulk of the peloton was using sedisport chains and a lot of riders with Campagnolo groupsets had quietly fitted simplex SLJ retrofriction gear levers to their bikes. For example



SLJ gear levers mixed in with the campagnolo groupset there on Phil Andersons bike.

cheers

[Brucey]

from 1895 (above) and 1894 (below)



ever wanted something that looks like a runaway bonfire on your bike?





'side visibility' isn't a new thing in bike lights; many from this period have something rather than nothing. However the lamp above has red and green jewels set in the side, for port and starboard respectively. Presumably in flood conditions a bicycle must observe rules of navigation...


1897

[Brucey]

'sprocketman' first appeared in 1975 as part of a Stanford University safety scheme and has recently been resurrected.

You can read more here

https://transportation.stanford.edu/bicycle/about-the-bicycle-program/meet-sprocket-man

including pdfs of sprocketman comics.

[Brucey]

un peu d'air sur terre ….

et deux chainrings on the wrong side....

[Brucey]

I wonder how many kids came to grief trying to emulate this?

[Brucey]

given that they revised the Super Record after quite a short period of time, it turned out to be more 'the penultimate derailleur'....?

cheers

[drossall]

Nothing else quite has the look though...

[Brucey]

Nothing else quite has the look though...

This one is preferred by many;

and there are small but potentially important practical differences, e.g.

- slightly increased capacity
- elevated outer guide plate so that reluctant downshifts can be forced if necessary
- revised pulley fastenings which won't strip the holes in the inner guide plate

However cynics -or are they pragmatists?- will note that a contemporaneous SunTour Cyclone weighs less and shifts better.

cheers

[freiston]

I wonder how many kids came to grief trying to emulate this?

My first ever bike was a Triumph Rodeo (second hand - times were hard). I do recall previous fruitless searches the internet for any information on it - so I am glad that you posted this. I'm sure that I did do something similar to the lad in the advert and I'm sure that I fell off a few times too.

[Brucey]

this is the (slightly worrying, single brake) export model.



Although the frameset is drawn in the ad with a very gradual curve in the top tube, this is artistic licence; in reality it is more of a kink. I would cynically suppose that this would make it dead easy to make, perhaps using the readily available seat lugs which were (I think) then used on GPO bikes amongst others...?.

cheers

[freiston]

Cheers

[Brucey]

it is interesting to note that the 'dynohub' lighting option cost almost 10/- more than the 'three speed hub' option on the 'rodeo'. I'd have guessed the other way round perhaps.

cheers

[Mick F]

un peu d'air sur terre ….

et deux chainrings on the wrong side....

If you zoom in, it's strange that only the lead bicycle has the chainring correct.
The other two are wrong.

Could this photo be "photoshopped" and combined out of more than one photograph?

[Brucey]

in days gone by I would have said this was most likely all the work of an airbrush, from a montage of photos. These days it may have never left the computer, to much the same effect.

The shadows aren't quite right either, presumably for much the same reason.

cheers