SpeedofLite 

I think there are some peculiarities in the photo of the bike, but I present the pages as published.
PDF attached below.

verktyg 

Looks completely normal and correct for a 1969/1970 US model Tour de France (except maybe the Nitor plastic saddle).

The European TdF frames only used Reynolds 531 in the 3 main tubes plus they were built with either Simplex or Huret dropouts depending of the brand of derailleurs that the bike was equipped with. Also, the seamed tube rear triangles were painted not 1/2 chromed like the US models with Reynolds tubing.

The Mel Pinto Imports Tour de France US model bikes were introduced in early 1969. They were designed to compete against the similarly equipped Peugeot PX-10.



PX-10s had Brooks Pro saddles vs. plastic ass hatchets on the TdFs; Lyotard 45 alloy quill pedals vs. Lyotard 460D alloy rat trap pedals and Stronglight V4 headsets vs. the P3 headsets that came on the TdFs. You could get a PX-10 in any color as long as it was white. The TdFs came in a number of colors. Only ever saw one black Gitane from that era.


The 1969 and 1970 Gitane Tour de France and Super Corsa frames had brazed on "willow leaf" seat stay caps. After that they switched to cheap swagged seat stay tops.



My mostly original 1969 Gitane Tour de France.



My 1971 TdF



I find reviews from the bike boom era amusing. Most were written by folks who had little experience with light weight bikes and N=? to compare them with.

Sort of like Dick Clark's American Band Stand new song reviews from the 1960's: "I like it, it's easy to dance to"...

verktyg

greatscott

simplex plastic (they called it something else but I can't recall what) derailleur was pure junk! they shifted poorly and didn't last long.

big chainring 

The plastic was Delrin. I use the Prestige and Competition models on most of my bikes.... I like French bikes. Getting close to 50 years old and my Simplex delrin derailleurs still operate nicely. The Prestige shift levers snapped, and the front derailleurs cracked. I have super glued my front derailleurs with some success. The rear derailleurs operate quite well on 14-22 or 14-24 freewheels.

verktyg 

One word: PLASTICS


DuPont the creator on Nylon, patented Delrin® an acetyl resin plastic in 1956. Commercial production of Delrin and several closely related plastics began in both the US and Europe in the early 1960's. Those materials function as self lubrication bearings in low rotational speed applications under light loads where little heat is generated.

In 1961 Simplex introduced their Juy Export 61 all metal rear derailleur. Both the upper and lower pivots were spring controlled. The design was SUPERIOR in all respects to all Campagnolo RDs until the short lived 1st generation Rally long arm derailleurs (which were copies of Shimano Crane GS derailleur).



Shortly thereafter 1962 in conjunction with Peugeot and at their prodding, Simplex introduced a line of rear derailleurs that used Delrin plastic parts to replace some of the metal pieces. This significantly lowered manufacturing costs.

The 1962 Simplex Prestige 532 rear derailleur with Delrin knuckles and parallelogram plates . "It was a bold, dynamic, modern and, ultimately, disastrous move." (Disraeli Gears website)



It took Simplex another 3+ years of "improvements" to produce metal reinforced parallelograms that allowed these derailleurs to perform on a par with all metal derailleurs from that era.

The dual spring parallelogram pivots were the reason these derailleurs shifted so much better than the comparable Campy Gran Sport, Record, Nuovo Record, Super Record, etc. which only had a spring in the lower pivot. Campagnolo eventually adopted the dual pivot spring feature in the early 1980's.

When new, well adjusted and lubricated the Delrin bodied Prestige (ubiquitous on bike boom gas pipe bikes) and the fancier Criterium model used on Peugeot PX-10s and Gitane Tour de France bikes shifted very well. Starting in the early 70's the "cheap" Suntour V derailleurs blew the competition out of the water but that's a different story...

Another issue with Simplex derailleurs was that bike manufacturers used poor quality derailleur cables and housing that were not lubricated during assembly. This degraded the shifting and the plastic derailleurs were blamed for the poor performance.

The Prestige derailleurs were commonly used with the "Alpine Gearing" found on bike boom era European bikes: 14-28T 5 speed freewheels, 52-36T, 52-40T or 52-42T chainrings. At our shop, we were frequently able to get them to work with 14-30T and even sometimes 14-32T freewheels!

While I still consider the Simplex Prestige junk, I have Simplex Criterium derailleurs on at least 3 of my classic French bikes.




Simplex pushrod front derailleurs are another story! They're CRAP!

verktyg

63rickert

What big chainring said. In spades.

JUY 61 was undoubtedly a fantastic derailleur. How many were produced? Hundreds? Maybe a couple thousand? Prestige was produced by the million. Campagnolo was not a choice for low and moderate priced bikes. The realistic options before Prestige were Cyclo-Benelux and Huret Allvit. Somehow Schwinn managed to sell a whole lot of Allvit gears and as the years go by I am warming up to them (esp. the fronts). But if that was the best/only choice what we called tenspeeds would not have happened. We wouldn't be sitting here talking about it.

Thank you verktyg for clarifying US/French Gitane TdF. A few years back I walked in on framebuilder Ron Boi with a 1969 TdF. From 30 feet in dim light the first words out of his mouth were "That's not a Gitane." He'd never seen one before and he hadn't yet seen the seatstay caps, still no question it was a frame by a framebuilder and not a factory. Not naming the builder now because of all those who read catalogs rather than metal. Still the point is a one-man shop could produce all the TdFs the American market could take. While also taking care of the rest of his customers. The bike world was a much smaller space. Judging Prestige by what Campagnolo did or didn't do, or by what SunTour would be doing a decade and more later makes no sense. Without "junk" and "CRAP!" produced in 1962 no bike boom and no bikeforums.

Salamandrine 

Simplex delrin derailleurs shifted just fine, including the Prestige. Simplex hatred is IMO at least partly psychosomatic.

Yeah, 50 years and plenty of UV later, and the Delrin has gotten a little crispy. No surprise.

Delrin rocks. If anyone here camps or hikes, you'll note that virtually all backpack and tent hardware is delrin, because it is the best material for the job. Perhaps in 50 years a bunch of hipster C&V camping enthusiast will sit around and talk about how lousy things were back then, and what could they have been thinking using the brittle plastic junk.

kohl57

Simplex and Delrin are the litmus test of Francophile cycle collectors and riders. And yielding to no one in my passion for French lightweights, I'll take Simplex anything over Campagnolo made in terms of derailleurs (or seatposts). Every Simplex derailleur I've ever used, including the bottom rung Prestige on my 1973 Peugeot UE-8, shifts better than anything I've from that Italian firm. The really nice Criterium models like the one on my '69 PX-10 is buttery soft, efficient and the only issue is overshifting if I've ridden a Campagnolo equipped bike just previously.

Delrin was originally used for engine mountings (for example on the Jaguar E type) and is unique among plastics in that it is actually "nourished" by... oil. The best way to both visually restore it and keep it strong and supple is to generously rub oil on it... any oil works. If you have that grey brittle Delrin, a 3-in-1 soaked rag will bring it miraculously back to life.

Peter Kohler
Washington DC USA

dddd

I believe that the "Export 61" derailer photo posted by Chas is actually an Export Luxe, which was much more highly-finished and had upgraded parts.

I have these older Export 61 derailers, the first version before they used big plastic caps (instead of the machined aluminum caps with slotted flat-head screws).

These probably remained in production for some time after the plastic derailers started shipping out, as they really aren't that rare to find.

philbob57

If the Prestige was junk, what was the Campy Gran Turismo? I got more miles out of a Prestige than a GT, and the shifting was a lot smoother. Of course, when the Delrin broke, it was useless. The GT was a great paperweight, even, I suspect, in Chicago area winds.

79pmooney

They actually were quite decent derailleurs that suffered from being used in a way that was never dreamed of when they were designed. On the 52-48 X 14-26 pure racing bike they were designed for, a very good derailleur. 52-42 hadn't become the racing standard yet. 52-36 (like the many thousands of UO-8s that came with those Simplexes) was a nightmare designed to torture and kill Simplexes. Many a Simplex died at the alter of "Alpine gearing". And their reputation is still burning in hell because of it.

I am not fan of Simplexes, but they are not nearly as bad as their reputation. They simply were never given a chance.

Ben

greatscott

Well all I know is that my brother and I bought identical Puch bikes that had those Delrin Simplex derailleurs and they were pure trash, they never shifted right and the bodies eventually cracked, we replaced them only about 3 year after buying the bikes with Huret Challenger on his because he got his next to nothing being that it was used, and the one I got was a Simplex SX some number I can't recall.

the plastic Simplex derailleurs (I thought these too were called Prestige but I could be wrong) looked exactly like this:

dddd

Of course, looking at that photo (and by the experiences of many), it was often the case that riders got a reasonable amount of service out of their Prestige derailers.
That yours worked poorly when new testifies to it not being set up right by the dealer, which may have led to a more-forceful action at the shift lever being needed.
Often the lever breaks when the cabling or adjustments are off, but with good setup it was a fingertip-actuated parts ensemble for me.

This bike gets used for many club rides over the three or four years that I've owned it, both derailers are original to the bike, and both perform flawlwssly (admitting here I'm using modern chain with Uniglide 6s freewheel):

gbi

dddd, I think you have a simplex model 32 RD.

dddd

I hadn't heard of that model, perhaps it was the predecessor to the Export 61???

In hindsight, it's a bit sad that these metal derailers disappeared for so long before being re-designed and re-introduced in the 70's.
But they are a very good bit heavier than the Delrin models, no doubt.

greatscott

I heard from a lot sources over the years that the Delrin derailleurs flexed more than their steel counterparts, and that flexing made for poor shifting. As far as mine being set up correctly or not, I did take the bike to another shop and they too dinked around with it but they said those were junk derailleurs. The last shop I took it to said I wasn't going to get any better shifting out of them, that's just how they worked, I later took the bike to this last place after the plastic plate cracked and they replaced the derailleur with the Simplex SX or whatever it was, the SX thing I think I have right but I can't recall the numbers that was after that..

gbi

I believe the 61 and 32 were introduced at about the same time, with the 32 being the less expensive model.
I am not familiar with the difference in performance between the two derailleurs.

verktyg 

Beware the Ides of March... I have come here not to praise Lucien Juy but to bury him!

gbi, you are correct... maybe - Is it wrong, or just French...

The photo posted by David @dddd is indeed a first generation Simplex Raidexport 32 derailleur. It has aluminum caps over the pivots. Later versions had white plastic plugs covering the hex holes in the pivots.



velobase lists 3 different versions of Raidexport 32 RDs (scroll to middle of the page)

https://velobase.com/ListComponents.a...29-6f503d6e439

There's some misinformation concerning the 32 and 61 derailleurs on several websites.

Disraeli Gears shows a photo of a 2nd or 3rd generation Raidexport 32 under the Simplex Export 61 listing.

Simplex Juy Export 61 derailleur

The REAL Simplex Export 61



VeloBase.com - Component: Simplex Juy 61 (riveted Simplex logo)

Quote from that listing:

"The Juy 61 appears in the 1961-1962 Holdsworth Aids to Happy Cycling catalogs. The Raidexport N32 model is the less expensive version with the same mechanics; the Raidexport N32 isn't as nicely finished and lacks the enameled badge of the Juy 61."

Japanese collector's websites are a good source for identifying rare components. Those guys are full tilt OCD!

Simplex JUY EXPORT 61 rear derailleur

https://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/sakutetu/40634574.html Raid Export

The Simplex Export 61 and Raidexport 32 probably shifted about the same; the differences were mainly cosmetic plus the Export 61 had ball bearing pulleys.


To muddy the water a little more, LJ (Lucien Juy) played pretty loose with model names. The first RD with Delrin knuckles and parallelogram came out in 1962 and was called the Prestige 532 and was modeled after the 32 and 61 derailleurs.



There were also some cheaper versions with single pulleys.

The next was the 1966 "Prestige" Criterium 537. It was revamped with metal plates on the sides of the Delrin parallelogram plates and travel limit screws instead of the thumb wheels on the previous models. They had pulleys with ball bearings.



In the late 1960's the model names changed again. The new Prestige 637 became the ubiquitous cheap economy model with the red face plate and zinc or cadmium plated pulley cage and other steel parts. These are the derailleurs that forever condemned the Simplex brand (and French bikes along with them).

They were produced with a claw mount AR 637 P and also as a direct mount AR 637 NI version with a removable claw.



At the same time that the new Prestige was introduced the "Prestige" Criterium 537 was renamed the Criterium 637 model. The main difference was the new face plates were clear plastic over foil and they had red plastic plugs in the hex holes that were used to adjust pivot tension. The plugs were intended to discourage hammersmiths from using them to remove or disaassemble the derailleurs. The mounting screws were on the back sides. The Criteriums were direct mount but some came with a removable claw.



There was also the rare long arm Maxi-Prestige variant used for wide range touring gears and tandems. The claw was about 1" longer than on the standard Prestige plus the long cage allowed it to eat up a lot of chain. They were not very robust so not many survived.



BTW, the french thought highly of Huret Allvit derailleurs. They came out just about the time LJ switched over to Delrin. Allvits were the French answer to the all metal Campy derailleurs.

verktyg

63rickert

Allvit introduced 1958. Familiar looking version 1961.

diomekes

What's the difference between quill and rat trap? I'm guessing rat trap is assigned to toe-clip pedals, which can be quill?

Salamandrine 

That's it exactly. I worked on bike boom bikes all the time during my high school LBS days. By then they were a few years old and were getting pulled out of garage and dragged to the shop for a tune up. The vast majority were very poorly set up. A lot of shops didn't seem to know how to work on 10 speeds in the 70s. The RD would be some funky angle. The hanger was usually bent. The FD would be 1/2" from the chainrings and crooked. The chain would have stiff links and either way too much or no lube, and it would probably be the wrong length. Limit screws would be all wrong. Cables weren't lubed... etc... When all this got fixed, they shifted fine.


The customers who brought them in more often than not asked for new derailleurs, because the ones they had "didn't shift". We were happy to sell them a new set of Suntours if they insisted after we explained it was mostly a matter of a tune up, but that Suntours were a bit better shifting and more durable. Even then I was a retro snob and didn't like doing this. Some unscrupulous shops wouldn't just bolt on new whatever and take the money - often a cheap steel Shimano Lark or something that shifted worse than Simplex.

sykerocker 

To further muddy the waters, here's the version of the Simplex Prestige that came on my 1966 Raleigh Royale. Black Delrin and a sort of cardboard-ish material covering the springs (the top spring originally had one, as I found a few fragments left when I restored the bike).



I, too, do not get the Simplex hate. Back in the day, it only took me one afternoon of riding with a bike club buddy of mine, I on my Gitane Professional Super Corsa (all Campagnolo) he on his Tour de France, and a couple of swaps during the course of the day's ride to show me that I had wasted a lot of money on a second-class bike. And that, compared to the Simplex/Mavic/Stronglight combination, Nuevo Record was a waste of money. Fifteen years ago, when I got back into the hobby and started buying vintage bikes, the one Gitane I wanted was a Tour de France. And I still have it. It's the oldest (my ownership) bike in my collection.

I will happily buy any French bike with Simplex components. And any shortcomings to them are probably best considered by the realization that nobody was expecting us to ride them sixty years later.

verktyg 

Quill pedals are one sided and designed to be used with toe clips.



You can pedal on both sides of Rat trap pedals. They can also be used with toe clips.



verktyg

verktyg 

What you have is a fine example of the mid 60's Simplex "Nuovo" Prestige derailleur. Ugly and very cheap! The white material covering the pivot springs was thin plastic.

I have Simplex Criterium derailleurs on a number of of my Classic French bikes (PX-10s, TdFs, Bertins). With good cables and a "modern" chain like the SedisSport they shift great!

Frank Berto commented that Campy Nuovo Record rear derailleurs were beautiful and very well made and would shift poorly forever!

Until the late 70's bikes in the US were still considered to be kid's toys. The life expectancy of a bike during those years was 5 years or less.

verktyg