Just wondering when centrepulls were last used on new bikes?

1988_Ben

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My Willi Moore touring frame (mid to late 80's) has an aero fork crown and forged seatstay bridge (with central square section) yet it's not drilled out for recessed allen key caliper bolts. Most other frames of this quality and age I've seen are drilled for recessed bolts.

Is it feasible that as my frame was built as a tourer, and needed centrepulls, the maker simply chose not to drill for recessed nuts ? In other words could you only get centrepulls that took a standard nut, and therefore it wasn't worth drilling for recessed bolts ?

I'm wondering how long this practise went on for - did cantis take over at some point, despite being old technology even in the 80's ?
 
Dawes switched from centre pulls to cantilevers in the mid - late 80s as far as I can tell. My Horizon is 1990 and I have a feeling it wasn't that much earlier than that that they were using centre pulls. I think the cantis were a big improvement over the centrepulls!
 
I think it's more likely non recessed brakes were used so it'll be easier to mount the mudguards.
 
If the fame was built with centre-pulls specifically in mind then it would probably have a cable stop bridging the seatstays. If it does not have this then it is likely, as fiks says, to make it easier with mudguards.

Mind you, just to muddy the waters a little, Mafac used to make a GT centrepull which were lovely bits of kit, but were recessed allen key fitting.
 
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