T-Mar

Boom era, low end derailleurs were not junk. Manufacturers rarely spec'd the bottom of the line model. For instance, you rarely saw a SunTour Skitter, Instead, you typically got a SunTour Honor. While it was heavy, it did shift well. Owners couldn't tell the difference in shifting between it and the top of the line SunTour VGT. The same goes for the other other manufacturers. They all had their negative aspects but lower end derailleurs like the Huret Allvit, Simplex Prestige and Shimano Sky Lark were respectable performers for their era. When you compare them to the lauded, high end competition, such as the Campagnolo Nuovo Record rear mechanism, they were on par and arguably better, in terms of shifting performance.

I don't know what derailleurs you are replacing these units with but I suspect they are more modern units, in which case it really isn't a fair comparison. There are a lot benefits to newer technology and the trickle down effect that comes with it. There was a huge jump in shifting technology in 1985, when Shimano introduced SIS. It wasn't the indexing itself, as much as it was the incorporation of constant, short chain gap geometry, which provided early, crisp shifting, aided by the expiration of SunTour's slant parallelogram patent. There was another quantum leap in shifting performance with the 1989 introduction of Hyperglide's ramped and profiled cogs. And let's not forget the part of the more flexible, bushless chain, introduced by Sedis in 1981. None of these were avaialble in the early 1970s.

So, if you're substituting index era derailleurs, Hyperglide compatible freewheels and bushless chains, there is going to be a world of difference. However, it's due to the march of technolgy, not the level of the derailleur itself. Even the high end derailleurs of the earlier era shifted poorly in comparison.

As for the other components of the era being junk, a lot of it had to do with supply and demand. The bicycle boom escalated so quickly that manufacturers could not fill the need. New workers with little or no experience in the industry were hired. The LBS were screaming for product and under such pressure, things were being rushed out the door. Understandably, quality suffered in these situations. You saw things like poor finish, missing parts, incorrect assembly, insufficient lubrication and incorrect bearing pre-load. And there were lots of part substitutions, usually lower grade.

The LBS had the ability to rectify many of these situations and the more conscentious shops did effect the necessary corrections, when possible. However, there were a lot of greedy shop owners who were more interested in maximizing their profits and instructed their mechanics only to assemble the bicycles, adjust the derailleurs and brakes, and fix any glaring problems that even an uneducated consumer would notice. After, decades of use, abuse and subsequent neglect, a lot of these bicycle can look not much better than something that came out of a chain store.

Usually, these issues were not as evident on the higher grade bicycles. The manufacturers had a reputation to uphold and placed their experienced workforce on these models. The new workers were assigned to building the lower end bicycles and componets, where it was hoped that the the less knowledgeable consumer would not notice the difference.

In additon to being more frequent and noticeable on the low end models, the quality lapses were also more evident on the European manufactured brands. Too their credit, the Japanese faired much better in this aspect. In the aftermath of World War II. America had a distaste for Japanese product, which was routinely referred to as "Jap crap". However, unlike their American counterparts, post war Japanese manufacturers took to heart the quality philosophy of men like Demming and Juran, ingraining it into their manufacturing culture.

It took the shortages of the bicycle boom to open America's eyes to the fact that the Japanese could build a quality bicycle. Their early boom efforts tended to be on the conservative side, to ensure reliabilty. Consequently, characteristics like a resilent ride and weight tended tended to suffer in comparison to the Europeans. However, there was no denying their ability to produce consiststent, good workmanship. Shipments of European bicycles would be all over the workmanship map. Consumers would inspect a lineup of Peugeot UO8 or Raleigh Grand Prix to ensure that they got the best one. This wasn't necessary with something like a Sekine SHC. Consumers didn''t necessarily know what it was about the Sekine, but they knew it looked better and they all looked the same.

The legacy of the Japanese bicycle industry coming out of the early 1970s bicycle boom was that they educated of the American and Europeans on the importance of quality. The market success of the Japanese bicycle in the entry level market forced the rest of the world to raise their bar on workmanship.