I'm lucky enough to have a supermarket at the bottom of the hill that I have to climb on my way home from hot-day training rides, the better to cool off with a cold bottle of water one last time while strolling past the store's freezer cases!
The ONE bike that gets the most positive comments as I pass through the store has to be my yellow 1971 Supersport!
This being California, nobody takes offense at race-kitted me strolling trough a supermarket with a road bike.
The bike's extremely nostalgic look with it's shiny stem shifters and many chromed or polished bits gets un-equalled attention from this store's customer demographic.
The original "knee-action" Allvit derailer is still there, though modified for the added travel across a six-speed, 13-28t freeweel. Together with modern chain, and most importantly,
modern cabling, the long stem-shift levers, pulling long cables, combine to produce sublime shifting quality even under hard conditions of foothills terrain (and spirited competition).
From much reading online, I often get the impression that I'm the first person who ever rode a bike with an Allvit derailer
and good, modern cabling!
***Note that the cable's length, combined with this derailer's relatively stiff return spring, can/will tend to exacerbate any
friction issues along the three lengths of cable housing going back to the rear derailer! (!)
It's not easy finding the right ferrules to work with compressionless derailer housing on these bike's multiple cable stops, but 4mmx5mm metal ferrules do exist, even as the lower run of housing past the bottom bracket seems perhaps too sort/stiff to even fit between the brazed-on stops (lined brake cable housing with the vinyl covering stripped back a few mm works well enough in that location however).
Yeah, leave some extra time for getting these bike's derailer cables/housings/ferrules set up right!
...and of course one needs a decently freed-up derailer to start with, ...too much to ask(?).
