Vintage French randonneuer's and porteurs.

Imlach said:
Trying to reassemble the derailleur after sobering up, Lucien realised 'Simplex' was misleading branding stemming from a Merlot fueled winter's night with no rosy cheeked French plumb to warm his mustache. But knowing that one day there'd be British folk undertaking the tedious chore of taking them apart got the blood rushing back into la saucisse de porc, and the patent papers were signed in a swift motion.
Click to expand...

I think you are closer to the truth than you can imagine. Simplex was in Dijon. Dijon is surrounded by top-notch Burgundy wine.

There was bound to be side effects which got amplified over time. I'm convinced the design department would sit down after a three hour lunch and have a little competition amongst themselves who can come up with the most outstandingly wacked out ideas for what a derailleur should be. Looking at Simplex on https://www.disraeligears.co.uk/site/simplex_derailleurs.html you really don't know to laugh, cry, jump out of window, or get blind drunk.

This is finest, worth a read: https://www.disraeligears.co.uk/site/simplex_selematic_5_derailleur.html

iu
 
I was at the charity shop yesterday. Almost pulled the trigger on a fairly low-end 650B Randonneur. Had all that period and price point ubiquitous French flavour of nothing to get too excited from the 80s except for the Mafac canti-levers brakeset. Brand was Vellum which looked like re-stickered anything else. It's sad that it will most likely rot away. Was only 20€ - an uber low budget weekend gravel / city bike potentional for the motivated and right sized rider just to single speed it and have some rocking carefree fun in all of it. Complete with proper rack mounts too. If it was for sale in the bigger cities it would be worth much much more. If it was outside of France, probably hipster exotica.
 
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