Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

Hello everyone. Happy to be a member of this forum.

I am restoring a 1939/early 40s French randonneur. I am on the brakes at the moment. The Bebolux are great but the block holders are small compared to eg a Mafac Dural Forge centre pull (see photo for comparison) and are too short for a Koolstop (46.5 mm). The holders will take a 40 mm block, unless I cut a Koolstop down ? Does anyone know if someone makes 40mm blocks ?
Cheers.

Very Simplex wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 03, 2025 3:09 pm

Hello everyone. Happy to be a member of this forum.

I am restoring a 1939/early 40s French randonneur. I am on the brakes at the moment. The Bebolux are great but the block holders are small compared to eg a Mafac Dural Forge centre pull (see photo for comparison) and are too short for a Koolstop (46.5 mm). The holders will take a 40 mm block, unless I cut a Koolstop down ? Does anyone know if someone makes 40mm blocks ?
Cheers.

In the past I have just engineered the Koolstop pads to a shorter length which works fine.
Maybe there are other options around these days?

Richard

Hi Richard. Yes, that will do. In fact I should have just googled 40mm brake blocks - there are loads out there, though probably not as effective as a Koolstop.

While you are there. I was looking at Bebolux brakes posts on the forum and came across one of yours which mentioned a clamp on hook to take a Cyclo tension spring. The usual braze on eye or nib under my chainstay has disintegrated. Do you happen to have a spare hook you would be willing to off load. No luck on ebay I'm afraid. Cheers. Jeremy

Very Simplex wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 03, 2025 7:12 pm

Hi Richard. Yes, that will do. In fact I should have just googled 40mm brake blocks - there are loads out there, though probably not as effective as a Koolstop.

While you are there. I was looking at Bebolux brakes posts on the forum and came across one of yours which mentioned a clamp on hook to take a Cyclo tension spring. The usual braze on eye or nib under my chainstay has disintegrated. Do you happen to have a spare hook you would be willing to off load. No luck on ebay I'm afraid. Cheers. Jeremy

They aren't common, but sometimes come up on the French e-Bay site. I'll go have a look in the garage to-morrow but I have a suspicion I've used the two that I found a while back.

Richard

WyvernRH wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 04, 2025 8:31 pm

Very Simplex wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 03, 2025 7:12 pm

Hi Richard. Yes, that will do. In fact I should have just googled 40mm brake blocks - there are loads out there, though probably not as effective as a Koolstop.

While you are there. I was looking at Bebolux brakes posts on the forum and came across one of yours which mentioned a clamp on hook to take a Cyclo tension spring. The usual braze on eye or nib under my chainstay has disintegrated. Do you happen to have a spare hook you would be willing to off load. No luck on ebay I'm afraid. Cheers. Jeremy

They aren't common, but sometimes come up on the French e-Bay site. I'll go have a look in the garage to-morrow but I have a suspicion I've used the two that I found a while back.

Richard

So you mean this sort of thing?


I do have a spare as it turns out but there are a couple of catches to these things. Biggest one is the clamp does not fit all stay shapes or sizes, so it may not fit your bike - check the picture. I had to make my own clamp on one that I used. Also, they are not cheap. I paid $50 all up for the last one of these a few years back. I'm happy to pass it on for that plus P&P but there are other ways to do this which could be considered period.
This breakage was not uncommon back in the day and folk worked around the problem various ways.
One is to use a Sturmey chain stay cable clamp to replace the spring eye and hook the spring to that. Not so pretty but it works and these cable clamps are still readily available and cheap.
Another fix was to tap a small hole in the bottom bracket casting and thread a bolt into hole and use that to hook the spring to. Obviously, needs to be positioned carefully to avoid the spring interfering with the tyre and the bolt with your r/h cup.

Both are easy to do and pretty cheap.

If you are going for a re-paint you could get someone to put a new braze-on in place of course.

Richard

Keen to see the bike Very Simplex.

I’d better put up pics of my nearly finished velo de ville too

Hi Richard.
Sorry for the tardy reply. Much going on recently.
Thanks for the offer of the spring clamp. Thats a fair price. I have considered just making one and clamping just ahead of what is left of the eye under the chainstay, to stop the clamp being pulled backwards. But if it fits, your clamp will look best i think. I will measure the chainstay depth and see if you think it fits your clamp. Ingenious idea to tap into the BB shell but I think I'll get there without surgery (famous last words)

Its a "D.Buatois", from a villlage in the Jura. I think he must have only made a few, I can't find anything on him apart from some old records of his family name from the village written into the decal. Its got some nice original parts on it. Beautiful mudguards. I will post some pictures hopefully very soon. I won't be giving the bike a respray. I have done that a couple of times in the past and always regretted it, even though the paint job was lovely. There are enough of the original decals showing and it will look lovely once finished.

The rear hub was buggered so I have replaced that with one from a (nameless) pair I had in my box of old French bits. The original spokes - JP 12 (1.8, single butted), are mainly fine, but most of the ones on the gear side are chewed and should be replaced ideally. So I'm searching around for NOS or used ones of the same length. I can use all the old brass nipples.

Hello Imwit. I will take some pictures very soon. Yes, please do show photos of your bike.

Cheers

Hi Richard,

The chainstay is about 20.2 mm deep and about 15.5 mm wide, at the relevant point. Do you think the clamp of your hook would fit ?

Cheers