Originally Posted by
The Golden Boy
For as ubiquitous as Avocet saddles are- they’re really good. There’s a chart/ad out there detailing the differences between the Racing and Touring saddles and the I, II and III models. I have several Touring II and one Racing I.
From the 1978-79 Avocet catalog:
Originally Posted by
JohnDThompson
No, they contracted with others to make parts under the Avocet name, mostly rebranded existing models. The Avocet cycle computer is the only component designed in-house AFAIK.
I left the bike business in 1979. Avocet offered some really great products but so many of them were vaporware that we tended to give up on trying to sell them. Frequently when we got a product in, the next time we went to reorder it was no longer available and the replacement product was on back order. That left a bad taste in my mouth and I lost interest.
I guess that I forgot that Avocet was selling hubs and headsets in the late 70's....
These brand stickers from the 70's were still on one of the windows of our long closed shop in NM when I visited there in 2014.
I was surprised when I wondered into Avocet's machine shop in the summer of 1982. There were no markings on the building not even a street number. The shop was full of brand new top quality equipment including a CNC lathe and mill. Since they were making prototype products they didn't want to talk much but I got the idea that they were planning on having someone in the US or a European manufacture that they could have better control over than Ofmega make their products. By 1983 or so the venture "vaporized".
Originally Posted by
noglider
I remember when Brandt wrote on Usenet about the design of the computer. Yes, he had a big hand in it. It was unlike all others. The others have a single magnet which passes the sensor once per revolution. The Avocet, had a constant magnet always near the sensor, and as he explained, the sensor would measure amplitude and create a sine wave. He said that this would prevent false readings from "bounces," and he said that all of the normal type create bounces. This leads to very high readings every so often.
Thanks for posting that old info...
Originally Posted by
philbob57
If memory serves - and it might not, alas - didn't the Ofmega cranks have weird dimension, so they need Ofmega BBs?
I'm thinking that the early Ofmega cranks were non standard. Later they became interchangeable (to a degree) with Campy and Sugino as advertised by Avocet???
Originally Posted by
unworthy1
In my experience the cranks that Ofmega made for Avocet did NOT have the "proprietary spindle taper" than some of the Ofmega-branded cranks did indeed have. So Avocet-branded cranks could use any of the Campy-or-Campy-compatible spindles without a hitch.
Early Avocet BBs may have used the
bastardo Ofmega BB design. I have a NIB Avocet replacement BB spindle. It lists crossovers for Campy/Sugino and T.A./Stronglight. The workmanship is quite cobby.
The finish quality of this 1984 Ofmega BB spindle is much higher, plus it's probably made of a steel alloy similar to US 4340 Nickel Chrome Moly.
Avocet cranks from their 1985 catalog courtesy of the velo-pages website:
https://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g2_itemId=47
verktyg
