Anyone know what this beauty is?

[nammonk]

Re:

"Well, the colour looks rather like a 25:1 TiO2/Phthalo Blue shade, so could well have been my doing since that pigment was still very much experimental at that time." He worked in the pigment industry... Probably not the information you were after, but there you go!

 

[mdvineng]

Not Osgear ends. the prong is just to help wheel replacement.
Osgear ends have a cut out to take the hub spindle in a fixed forward position. This is better for getting the changing arm close to the cogs.

As possibly the last person alive to have used a Paris Roubaix gear in a real road race there was nothing dangerous about undoing the rear wheel and changing gear on both at once.

Like some refer to "suicide" front changers, really no different than using a down tube bottle cage.

And if you have never had to stick a foot behind the fork crown to slow down....

Keith

foot behind the fork crown brakes, wow! that takes me right back to my early youth, really made steering and braking a challenge but we all lived, albeit with some scuffed elbows and knees