Date these deraileurs

"Donald Gillies" wrote in message
...
Mark Janeba writes:

Bob Hanson wrote:
According to "The Dancing Chain" (THE book about the history of
derailleurs), 4 different "Eagle" models were first introduced in 1975.
Two were classified as "low price medium range" and the other 2 "low
price wide range". There's no indication when they ceased production.

I'm pretty sure I had a bike with an Eagle rear, purchased new in 1972.

Are you sure it's not a Lark ?? They look pretty similar, if my badly
rusted memory serves ... One has a "moon unit" metal C-shaped guard
as you look at the freewheel, with many large holes all the way along
it ... a popular style during the moon program, 1965-1973.

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA

That is exactly what mine looks like! And it has the model name "Eagle" on
it.

Ken

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
JeffWills wrote:

Also, I gave up dating derailleurs when I got married. Not only does my
wife index, she cross-references, too!

Does your wife have Campy, Shimano or SRAM ESP shifter compatible spacing?

Well if she indexes and cross references, perhaps she is universal.



--
Tom Sherman - Earth

Tom Sherman wrote:
JeffWills wrote:

Also, I gave up dating derailleurs when I got married. Not only
does my
wife index, she cross-references, too!

Does your wife have Campy, Shimano or SRAM ESP shifter compatible
spacing?

--
Tom Sherman - Earth

Asking those kinds of questions will cause her to shift unpredictably.

Jeff Wills - Mars, of course

Mark Janeba wrote:

Are you sure it's not a Lark ?? They look pretty similar, if my badly
rusted memory serves ... One has a "moon unit" metal C-shaped guard
as you look at the freewheel, with many large holes all the way along
it ... a popular style during the moon program, 1965-1973.

The Lark and the Eagle were identical, except that the Eagle had an=20
additional "bumper" to protect it from impact, and an extra heavy duty=20
adapter claw.

These were the best shifting derailers money could buy through the early =

'80s. Nothing else came close. They're also probably the sturdiest=20
derailers ever made. As to weight...well, you can't have everything.

They also had a great "pre-selector" featu The cable anchor bolt was =

mounted on a pivoting arm with a stiff spring (didn't require a separate =

spring, it used the normally unoccupied end of the parallelogram return=20
spring.)

With this system, if you forgot to downshift as you came to a stop, you=20
could just yank the lever back to the position that corresponded to=20
whichever gear you preferred for starting up. With most derailers this=20
would bust the cable, but with the Lark/Eagle the spring loaded arm=20
would deflect, then as soon as you started to pedal, the derailer would=20
down shift to the desired gear.

I've got a 400LX on my Rambouillet, I think this was the last Shimano=20
model to have this nifty feature. Never understood why they stopped=20
doing it...

Sheldon "For The Birds" Brown
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