The European resistance: 1996 Genius OR + Sachs Quarz

[kingoffootball]

I have a very curious rear derailleur from Regina stored there...

I'm interested to see that. Is it long cage? I still need drive train solutions for my own Italian/European build.

 

[joglo]

I could swear that was German's bicycle, a mechanic that Cosme had in his workshop. Afterwards he went to work at Dirt Racing, which at that time imported Manitou, Hayes, etc. for Spain.

cool story

I'm still looking for a European alternative. The Sachs don't catch my attention much, but I don't rule it out.
I'm more looking for a Skrol or TTP (very inspired by the Grafton). They are difficult to get. The EDRs are more original, and they are also the first ones I put on the bike (although as I said they were in the prototype phase). Very few were produced and sold and in these years I have only seen the ones in the photo that I include, not one more!

wow, the shown custom levers,- mostly from Spain, right? - are all a really nice alternative to an Avid one.

BTW: I had the chance to buy once some Spanish MTB buyers guide magazines from the SoloBici magazine and was surprised about the enormous presence of local brands, not just for selling bikes from Asia under their own brand names but also doing development and production in Spain.

Outside of Spain and here in the forum there is little knowledge about those brands.
Skrol is a nice example.


Inspired by your selection also a few more European brake lever for came into my mind:

STM (Italy)


RPM (Germany)


WRA (Austria)


Alutech (Germany)


Just take care, some are already for long pull, but overall they are all also pretty rare and hard to find/get.

The idea of a full European bike is also not completely new. There was a specific model from the German brand Centurion called "Eurofighter"


This model had a good selection of nice parts from Europe.
They frame from the No Pogo full suspension model was welded at C.M.B in Italy.


The Magura HS had a specific Europe logo.

 

[lukewheels]

Lovely, really different. I have a sachs quartz wheelset in the shed as I had ideas of doing this groupset

 

[Obi-Juan]

I'm interested to see that. Is it long cage? I still need drive train solutions for my own Italian/European build.

Well, I started looking for the rear derailleur, but I forgot that you need to use an old shirt to open boxes stored for many years...I hope my new shirt can be washed well
I found the Regina, I keep it as an "anecdote", it really is not of great quality, too much plastic and stamped sheet metal. I imagine it was a part for cheap bicycles, but it is very curious and I love it.

 

[Obi-Juan]

But I also found other curious things.
I have to keep looking because I can't find a cantilever and a brake lever, they will be in other boxes there. If I remember where I have the Campagnolo rear derailleur tensioner, I kept it separate so that it wouldn't get lost in a box of "tiny and easy to lose parts."
It turns out that I have a Super Record rear derailleur with a titanium screw and other things like a Maillard helicomatic rear hub with its freewheel... well, but that's for a road bike.
But I did see some curious Weinmann brakes that I also left photos as an example that in Europe we not only made classic and functional pieces, we also knew how to innovate. Our engineers have always been very avant-garde.
The Campagnolo seatpost is really curious and of course complicated because of that it is Campagnolo. The cranks, however, are gorgeous.
My first Sachs Quarz also appeared: proven, I used it a lot and gave it a very bad life. But it was really hard, until he died.

 

[Obi-Juan]

Lovely, really different. I have a sachs quartz wheelset in the shed as I had ideas of doing this groupset

Thank you so much.
That's really one of the concepts: doing something different. The world of cycling has been so big that it has given a lot of ideas and innovations, some good, others not and others that, although valid, did not come to fruition for commercial, distribution, etc. reasons.
One of my desires is to make a road bike with a Gipiemme group or especially Rino. There is life beyond Record or Dura Ace!! Well, I'll see.
At the moment I got a Klein Pulse for that reason, it is something different, it is the "ugly duckling" that no one wants from Kein. But it's a good framework, you can do something different. Well, it's also true that I can't resist the color "British Green" (BRG), although since I'm somewhat "strange" I have an English car and I bought it in burgundy and I don't regret it.
Klein it's coming soon

 

[kingoffootball]

Well, I started looking for the rear derailleur, but I forgot that you need to use an old shirt to open boxes stored for many years...I hope my new shirt can be washed well
I found the Regina, I keep it as an "anecdote", it really is not of great quality, too much plastic and stamped sheet metal. I imagine it was a part for cheap bicycles, but it is very curious and I love it.

Thanks, I love obscure derailleurs. Fortunately probably not the one to look for for my build.

 

[kingoffootball]

But I also found other curious things.
I have to keep looking because I can't find a cantilever and a brake lever, they will be in other boxes there. If I remember where I have the Campagnolo rear derailleur tensioner, I kept it separate so that it wouldn't get lost in a box of "tiny and easy to lose parts."
It turns out that I have a Super Record rear derailleur with a titanium screw and other things like a Maillard helicomatic rear hub with its freewheel... well, but that's for a road bike.
But I did see some curious Weinmann brakes that I also left photos as an example that in Europe we not only made classic and functional pieces, we also knew how to innovate. Our engineers have always been very avant-garde.
The Campagnolo seatpost is really curious and of course complicated because of that it is Campagnolo. The cranks, however, are gorgeous.
My first Sachs Quarz also appeared: proven, I used it a lot and gave it a very bad life. But it was really hard, until he died.

I haven't seen those crazy brakes before.

 

[Obi-Juan]

cool story


wow, the shown custom levers,- mostly from Spain, right? - are all a really nice alternative to an Avid one.

BTW: I had the chance to buy once some Spanish MTB buyers guide magazines from the SoloBici magazine and was surprised about the enormous presence of local brands, not just for selling bikes from Asia under their own brand names but also doing development and production in Spain.

Outside of Spain and here in the forum there is little knowledge about those brands.
Skrol is a nice example.
View attachment 857055

Inspired by your selection also a few more European brake lever for came into my mind:

STM (Italy)
View attachment 857058

RPM (Germany)
View attachment 857059

WRA (Austria)
View attachment 857060

Alutech (Germany)
View attachment 857061

Just take care, some are already for long pull, but overall they are all also pretty rare and hard to find/get.

The idea of a full European bike is also not completely new. There was a specific model from the German brand Centurion called "Eurofighter"
View attachment 857063

This model had a good selection of nice parts from Europe.
They frame from the No Pogo full suspension model was welded at C.M.B in Italy.
View attachment 857065

The Magura HS had a specific Europe logo.
View attachment 857068

Caray! (caray = Spanish expression of astonishment, it is not a bad word).
What a lot of good ideas
Really thank you very much. Some I didn't know. I'm already searching the internet avidly. I imagine it will take time, but in the end everything comes.
Indeed Skrol, EDR and TTP are Spanish brands. There was an "explosion" of innovative people in cycling in those years with great products, such as THT (perhaps the most international when manufacturing the Look KG 292 and stems for Look) or Alkon, a great Catalan craftsman with wonderful Easton aluminum frames, composite forks and other components.
EDR was the beginning of what Rotor is today (one day I will tell the part that I know about the origin of Rotor and his meeting with EDR, it is a nice story of 2 great guys, especially Rotor, just a child when he had a great idea and I fight a lot to bring it to a good conclusion).
EDR manufactured small CNC components in both aluminum and titanium: seatposts, stems, front hubs, cranks, etc. His passion and desire to improve led him to manufacture mainly Easton tube frames, both on the road and in MTB.
They were very light and of great quality, but unfortunately the high-end frame has very tough competition and few are sold. A handmade frame also tends to be somewhat more expensive than a commercial one and of course between choosing an EDR at Easton Elite and a beautiful Colnago Reflex at Columbus Altec, Colnago usually wins.
So those brands sold very few paintings to very knowledgeable people (and willing to face possible problems). Logically, seeing a friend with an expensive, well-assembled and very light bicycle means that you will soon have a good reputation in the market, but those people could not afford those bicycles. So taking advantage of the good reputation they start importing good Asian paintings...bad decision. Now you sell a lot more and they are good bikes, but the people who wanted something "special" and were betting on you no longer find you exclusive, your main market is gone. And the rest goes away over time, a loose frame and riding a bike is always more expensive than buying a good Marin or Specialized one.
An example is the EDR Furia, a beautiful Fuji Stout light Custom tube frame (the "custom" was a 27.2 seatpost instead of the usual 27.0 of the Stout light)
It was a bestseller and that's where it all ended.
Nowadays that painting is very easy to find and it really seems to me that they always sell it for a very expensive price, it was still a Taiwanese painting, very good but Taiwanese, where EDR did not contribute anything. I'm sorry, in Spain they would kill me for saying this, but it is reality

 

[Obi-Juan]

I know Alkon less, but something similar happened to her: her Easton frames begin to be complemented with the cheaper Oria frames and then some Oria frames begin to appear, and if you look carefully at details such as the drop out frames you see that those frames were not manufactured here. . They also had really affordable prices... and the thing was that the appearance was really economical, like the Alkon Basic. So Alkon, a great quality and very innovative manufacturer, starts selling more and ends up disappearing.
I leave a couple of images of the beautiful EDR Furia and a rare Alkon composite fork. The price of those forks if you can find them? Well, like a Syncros Powerlite or a Tange Switchblade, crazy