Reynolds 753

I'd like to start this thread as a resource for Mavic reference material such as owner gallery photos, catalog/manual scans, advertising, etc.

To start things off I've attached a magazine ad from 1992...

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jyl

Check out tearsforgears blog too. https://www.tearsforgears.com/

brandon98

Find definitive answers as to the following endless interwebz speculations:

-cog spacing and colors of spacers on the 571 and 571/2 cassette hubs. What colors mean what? Also, cog sources.

-840 derailleur and index shifter compatibility: is it Shimano, Mavic proprietary or old Dura-Ace proprietary? What modern Brifters can be used reliably?

-Bottom bracket tapers and symmetries for the 631 crankset: ISO and what length? Taper. Yes the 610 bottom bracket is nice, but not a lot of folks want to cut and chamfer a functional bottom bracket shell

CastleDerosa

I'm also interested in this info since i too have a group i'm trying to id and any relation to mavic is getting my attention !

unworthy1

Robert Broderick (the King of Katalog scans) has 7 catalogs for viewing on his Velo-Pages site
MAVIC
and our beloved VeloBase also cross-references to 4 of Robert's scans, the only one you are likely to want is his latest from '84-'85, but the earlier ones are interesting to us amateur historians.
I personally have a catalog from the late '80s (not sure of exact date cause there's not copyright info on it) that I have never got around to scanning, but maybe I can be influenced...

I can tell you it does NOT answer most of the questions that Brandon98 poses, but the 610 BB came with spindle lengths of 112 (track), 114 and 116 (double and "double long"), 119 and 123 (triple and "triple long"), the ATB BB 616 has 3 lengths: 124, 128 and 134. My guess is that the taper is ISO for all, can't confirm if the spindles are all symmetrical, but the mechanical drawing seems to hint that they are not.

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I have used the later Mavic indexed DT shifters on campy and shimano 8spd cassettes and RD's that have cable tension adjusting barrels without any issues.
Also an older SSC crank on campy NR/SR BB spindles.

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Thank You!!!

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unworthy1

sweet-sweet-sweet!

vqstaphbeard

The 840 derailleurs and siblings have Dura-Ace 7400 geometry. There is a guide on the derailleur that can be orientated in two ways. One is for 6 speed or essentially friction and the other is for indexed. Shimano 7400 downtube shifters and brifters will work with the 84x series.

Here is a setup I have with 7400 brifters, Mavic 841 rear derailleur, and 571/2 rear hub:

gaucho777 

^That's a great looking bike! I'm surprised the RD can handle the chain wrap for what looks to be a pretty wide gear range.

@unworthy1: Thanks for the link!

I'm a sucker for vintage Mavic from the mid-80s and before.

Chombi

The Mavic groups are quite interesting being that about half of their components were actually made by other manufacturers, re-branded for Mavic.
Other than the "Erector" style and electronic RDs and their FDs, their "Starfish" cranksets, Quill Pedals, Some of their their headsets (I think some of them could been made by Stronglight) and maybe their stems, handlebars and seatposts, the other components can be tracked to other companies, like brakesets from Modolo and DiaCompe, pedals from Look, Retrofriction shifters from Simplex..... There also had been rumors that their cranksets (The model 630 fluted, non-"starfish" design) might have come from Sugino(?). I've also heard that their 840 series indexed RD's and shifters might have come from Sachs.
I think that's why the Mavic groups don't seem to attract as many fans as "pure' group/gruppos do, which were designed together by one company. Although individually, like the derailleur sets and cranksets, in mint/NOS condition, tend to pull in significant money when they sell at eBay.
Despite the "mongrel" groups, Mavic seemed to have chosen pretty good components to complete their groups through the years. I think, the only glaring bad choice was their acceptance of sintered Modolo brake pads on their Modolo sourced brake calipers.....

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jyl

The thing I really love about Mavic is that they never had a good, better, best model line. Not like Campagnolo with Record, Chorus, Victory, etc or Shimano with Dura-Ace, Ultegra, 105 etc. In any given era, for a particular application, Mavic only made one crank, one subset, one deraiileur.

I mean, they made different versions of the 840 RD for road, mountain, etc, and different versions of the crankset for road, track, triple. But there was not a top-level road component and an entry-level road component. There was just one level of Mavic, and it was the best, the same as what the pros rode in the Tour., and the stuff was crazy expensive back in the day .

There was a brief shining period in the 1980s when Mavic was atop the road race world,. Champions rode on Mavic groups. LeMond won half his TdFs and WCs on Mavic (and the other half on Campagnolo). Then Mavic reached for the moon, with a daring, crazy, glorious, disastrous move to electronic shifting, 20 years before its time. That was the beginning of the end, and in a few years Mavic abandoned components altogether and retreated to rims and wheelsets.

I like to imagine a parallel universe, in which Mavic stayed at the top of the heap and, on French frames driven by French legs, continued to win TdFs through the 1990s and 2000s and today. Which is why one of my tout Mavic bikes is going to be fitted with Campagnolo brifters modified with the yellow Mavic logo. A bit of revisionist fantasy trompe d'ceil.

vqstaphbeard

Thanks! The RD is a mid cage (841) so it does pretty well. I'm never in small-small anyway, so I've never had an issue.

Chombi

One thing I really like with the Mavic 801/851 series RD is the adjustable height jockey wheels/ pulley cage. It makes it possible for the owner to adjust the height if the pulleys so you can get them to track close to the FW cogs. Which helps the RD shift much quicker and more precisely than most other straight parallelogram RDs....

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Some hands-on feedback from Dave Kirk of Mektronic shift system...

LOOK KG-196 Mektronic - The Paceline Forum

Reynolds 753

Absolutely, I was able to use a 14-28 freewheel by simply lower pulley cage position.

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There seems to have been a fair amount of collaboration as well which may have something to do with all the cross-branding. SACHS continued that approach into the '90s merging and working with various companies including Campagnolo. Unfortunately, that type of relationship can also create some conflict of interest which may have contributed to both Mavic and SACHS' relatively brief presence in the component end of the industry.

unworthy1

OK, I've encouraged myself to scan this catalog (and it's time-consuming so I know why I was dragging my feet), here's my favorite page, these are the classic 500 series hubs, but the "track" variation "520":

I'm going to try to post the whole thing to VeloBase, but would like to be able to name it with the correct date, there's no date on it that I can find, but probably many clues to people who know more about Mavic than me: such as when certain "ATB" units were launched...

If you can ID this catalog's date let me know. Here's another page that might help (ATB long-cage RD), but look for it (complete) on VeloBase, some day soon.

Reynolds 753

Can you post cover? I'm going to say '89/'90 due to graphic of "M" in upper right corner of photo. Cool hubset!

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unworthy1

Here's the front cover, back cover and inside-back-cover but as I say nothing date-wise that I can find anywhere...might help if I better understood French! Almost thought the address on the back said "©1990" but no...it's an address 01990

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Miguel Indurain won the Giro in '92 AND '93 so I'd say it's from one of those following years. My money's on '93.