BikePower

Marketplace find. $20 for both. Both are french ( fond de jante tube guard) one has Mallard quick release and the other is Spidel I think they are 27" or 700 how to tell?

juvela

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in case you shall be searching online for information the name is Maillard rather then mallard

the Maillard plant in Incheville closed permanently in 1991 so repair parts for Maillard products can be a challenge...

in addition to Maillard company brand names include Atom, Normandy, Lam & Porthor


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3alarmer 

...the simplest way is to take a wheel you know the size of (either 700c or 27"), and stand one of these next to it on a level surface.
They will either top out equally, or one will be shorter, the other taller. If equal, these are the same size as your reference wheel.

Taller/shorter ? The shorter one is 700c, the taller one is 27".

The french text you quote is just the Velox rim tape. It has nothing to do with the hub and rim maker.

juvela

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700 has a bead seat diameter of 622mm

27 has a bead seat diameter of 630mm

Spidel was a short lived effort at forming an export group to compete with Italy & Japan
created by several French components manufacturers joining forces


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dmark 

Look closely on the rim for engraving of the brand and size. Hopefully the bearings are smooth if so you got a good deal.

BikePower

the hubs say Maillard made in france. One says 01 84. The other says 04 84.


i still have not ascertained the diameter? Is that the date 1984? What year did 700s come out?

BikePower

i dont have a known 27" wheel. Can i measure the circumference with a fabric measuring tape? What dimensions am i looking for? Or maybe mark the wheel and roll it exactly one revolution on the ground and measure the distance?

randyjawa 

Did the OP get a good deal. Not the greatest, in my mind but that is just me.

Having had to work on lots of wheels, over the years, what I see there is a wheel set that will, likely, need to be rebuilt. Hubs for sure, must be cleaned, inspected and if found to have good races, greased, assembled and adjusted. One look at those spokes and I would just look for replacements. Chances are good that many of the nipples will be seized to the spoke. The rims look to be OK but are they matched? If not matched, another drawback to their value. Sorry if that all sounds really negative. And, for what it is worth, I have rebuilt worse. And, if aesthetics is of no concern, once rebuilt, they will work just fine.

That hub, 04 followed by 84 means the hub was made in April, 1984. Rim sizes are often times etched or stamped into the rims surface, usually near the valve hole...

Normally, the 700c version is fitted with the valve stems shown, while the 27" version does not. It just so happens that the rim below was/is an unusual 27" hoop that is very narrow...

3alarmer 

...do you have a known 700c wheel ? You can use either one. It's the sameness or difference that you're measuring.

dmark 

If you have the 72 Continental in your sig that is a 27" set of wheels.

BikePower

according to my calculations 27" works out to 82 27/32" circumference. How many inches diam is 700c?

dmark 

and...
"What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

BikePower

to answer that you have to read the thread from the beginning.

BikePower

I didnt find any markings on the rim itself, only on the hubs. Do you know if Malliard put markings on their wheels?

SurferRosa

Harsh. What's $20 buy any more? A medium carryout pizza?

BikePower

Pizza yum! Tomorrow i will see what cluster is on there. Maybe its something with some good pedigree?!

3alarmer 

...700c wheel rims are smaller. You don't need to know anything more, if you have a 27" reference wheel. If they are slightly shorter when standing next to a 27" wheel, they are 700's. trying to measure them in the various ways you are proposing leaves much more room for error.

Senior Ryder 00 

Hey,
Just pull a tire off the Continental. If it fits snugly, the rim is 27”. If it’s sloppy, it’s 700C. A quick, but not accurate check would be the valve stem hole. Schrader (larger) most likely 27”. Priests (smaller) could be 700C.
Good luck,
Van

rustystrings61 

The wheels are valuable to someone who wants to run period equipment on a French bike, how's that? The valve holes look like Schrader to me, which tips towards 27 x 1 1/4. 27 x 1 1/4 was originally a British Dunlop proprietary size, and the bead seat diameter is 630 mm vs. the 622 mm of the 700C size commonly used on bikes using wired-on/clincher tires on the Continent. Once the Raliegh Empire signed on, 27-in became the default for sporty bikes not using tubulars marketed in the Anglophone world, which (especially during the great bike boom of the early 70s) included French and Italian bikes. I've encountered at least a couple of bikes designed and built for 700C wheels that came factory-equipped with 27s for the U.S. market that required deflating the rear tire to get the rear wheel into the dropouts.

By the '80s narrow high pressure tires became popular for U.S. market bikes, first on high-performance machines, then trickling down. I had one LBS manager give me a better break than I deserved because he equated 27s with lower quality, not having been around when Paramounts came equipped with them. By 1990 I doubt anyone sold a new bike with 27s, and it made sense in terms of reducing the inventory needed for factories and repair shops.

All that said, pull the freewheel and service the bearings. I've had a few Maillards like this one with these dustcaps and when cleaned and repacked they were absolutely fine. And while 27 is regarded as an obsolete tire size now, it's still absolutely capable of yielding a good ride. Check to see if your rims are hooked or straight-sided on the inside. If hooked, run whatever you want. If straight-sided I would steer you to Panaracer Paselas with wire beads run at 70 psi. Those will run about 32 mm wide (1 1/4-in!) and while not a super-duper tire, they're still pretty good. I'm running a pair of those on a bike from 1976 at 70 psi, and they float down the road.

My understanding is that a boutique bike imports company asked on another forum if there was sufficient interest in marketing a modern, high-dollar boutique tire in this size, comparable to a Compass or Rene Herse or similar quality tire. There just weren't that many people who responded positively, which is a pity.

I am NOT entirely joking when I suggest that sooner or later some marketing genius will revive these under another name and extol their greater diameter - maybe call it the Dirty 630. It worked for 650B, aka 27.5!

BikePower

thank you Rusty for that detailed and passionate post. One Malliard wheel has the Malliard quick release and the other has a Spidel quick release. It would be great to have matching ones since the rims match.