NOTE: This post is rated R for mild strong
language.
Introduction
I just
installed Simplex Retrofriction shifters on Full Slab, my commuter bike. It’s been way, way
too long since I’ve had them.
Other
websites, like this one and this one, provide technical information about these
legendary shifters, but they don’t tell the whole story. To capture the full mystique, you need a
little history. Personal history. This post unravels the mysterious flow of
this schematic:
(Maybe you
stumbled on this post because you’re a fan of the Simplex tea kettle from
England. Well, I am too! Even though these are different companies, you
should read this post anyway because if that kettle were a shifter it would be
Simplex Retrofriction.)
If you
couldn’t care less about bike shifters, read on, because you should care, and maybe this will
help. Meanwhile, anyone with a love of
bike lore and nostalgia for cycling in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and a fascination
with this improbably wonderful French bike component, will find here many
nuggets of gratuitous trivia. Zut alors!—it’s lore galore!
Simplex sucks
Simplex
sucks, for the most part. The
Retrofriction shifters are the exception that proves the rule (and proof that
even a blind squirrel finds an acorn
once in awhile). As I’ve mentioned before
on this blog, my brothers’ first bikes had
Simplex shifters and derailleurs, and they were made of fricking plastic!
They didn’t shift for beans, of course—the chain was just dragged across
the cogs like a clattering crab trying to get traction on a polished tile
floor. These components were also
hideous to behold.
Working at a
bike shop in the late ‘80s I came across a plastic Simplex derailleur on a ‘70s-vintage
bike that was in for an overhaul. I
didn’t try very hard to make the derailleur work; I simply replaced it. I told the customer, “I noticed that your
derailleur was Simplex, so I replaced it.”
She said, “Simplex? What’s that?” I said, “It’s a brand. It’s French.”
She said, “Is that bad?” I
replied, “Oh, yes.”
The French
aren’t known for great bike parts, or great engineering in general. At one shop I worked at, one of the mechanics
liked to sneak up behind another guy and suddenly whisper in his ear, “French …
nuclear-powered … submarines.” The guy
hearing this would, according to an unwritten script, scream in terror. (The exception is rims. The French are really good, perhaps eerily
good, at rims.)
My first
Simplex product was a front derailleur on an ancient Schwinn commuting bike I
bought at a police auction. Oddly, this
derailleur was operated by a handle, not a shifter and cable.
It didn’t
say “Simplex” on it, by the way. Schwinn
was in the business of fooling patriotic Americans into buying foreign stuff by
putting their own label, “Schwinn approved,” on whatever parts they provisioned
for their bikes. (I had another Schwinn
with a Huret derailleur; also French, also terrible.) Needless to say, that front derailleur
shifted terribly, and also tended to get caught on my pant leg. In fact, that’s how it met its death—it got
snagged so hard it was torn from the bicycle, after which I shifted the front
chainwheels by hand.
My historical components of choice
Prior to
owning my first pair of Simplex Retrofrictions, my bike component choices were determined
mostly by economics. My first ten speed, bought by the ‘rents, had cheap Suntour , as did my second. By 1983 I was ready for some real racing
components and, like almost everybody, coveted Campagnolo but, on my paperboy’s
salary, could only afford Suntour Pro Superbe.
In 1985 I finally got my dream bike, an English-made Mercian with full
Campy Super Record. I was perfectly
content with the Campy shifters, which I’d also had on my previous bike,
because they were affordable and looked cool.
Over the years I somehow acquired several pairs, the oldest of which
were made in Vicenza instead of Milan and had raised, rather than engraved,
lettering. My friends and I made
keychains out of our extra Campy shifters.
We should have had girls throwing themselves at us for this reason
alone, but oddly did not.
The only
non-Campy component on my Mercian was the brakeset. For some reason, Modolo was really popular at
the time, despite being ridiculous, and I got swept up in its popularity. (One of the features of these brakes was that
each brake caliper was stamped with its own unique serial number; this should
be a case study for business majors in the difference between a feature and a
benefit.) When, in 1985, Shimano came
out with its totally revamped Dura-Ace line, on a lark I bought a new Dura-Ace brakeset
and liked it.
A year later,
my brother sold me his Team Miyata frame and begged me to build it up and ride
it. This was when the dollar was really
strong against the yen, so for $400 I bought a full Dura-Ace gruppo from
Colorado Cyclist. (Back then, Colorado Cyclist was a
garage-sized outfit in Estes Park; they’d recognize my voice when I called
them.) So now I had two bikes, one with
Shimano, the other Campy. Living the
dream, really. This was a bit unusual: bike people are often fiercely loyal to one
manufacturer over the other, so this was like being a member of two different
religions.
I became
disillusioned with Campagnolo when they came out with their disgraceful
first-generation indexed shift levers, which were called Synchro. We called them Stink-ro. The click-action was awful—it felt like you
were breaking glass inside the lever—and the whole system was a miserable
failure. I might not have cared except
for a traumatic experience involving them.
I was at the big bike industry trade show in Anaheim with the Coors Classic
director, Michael Aisner, a diehard Campy fan, and delighted in showing him, in the giant, gorgeous
Campagnolo booth, how bad Stink-ro stucked.
On a stationary trainer, pedaling a slick-looking bike with a gleaming white
disc wheel, I could make the derailleur mis-shift at will. (With indexed shifting, of course, it should
be impossible to miss a shift.) Mike
told me “wait right there!” and disappeared.
I
instinctively started trying to make the Stink-ro shift properly, and was still
fighting with it when Aisner reappeared with a small, swarthy fellow in a
beautiful chocolate-chip-ice-cream colored suit. They watched for a minute as I continued to mash
away with the gears. Finally I
dismounted and walked over to them. Aisner
turned to the gentleman and said, “This here is a big fan of yours.” Turning to me, he said, “Dana, meet Valentino
Campagnolo!” It was indeed the company’s
president, who was also the playboy son of the company’s founder, Tulio
Campagnolo. I shook his hand and mumbled
something bland and hoped he didn’t speak English. After he left, Aisner said, “If you had any balls at all, you’d have told the man
to his face that his stuff is shit!”
What you
can’t have failed to notice through all this history is that (except for the
police auction bike) I never considered buying Simplex. But why would I have, given the horrible
plastic crap on my brothers’ first bikes?
What happened instead is that the Simplex Retrofriction shifters found me.
Another bike I didn’t need
Though I was
perfectly happy having just two pro-quality racing bikes, a third one came
sniffing around. It was just a frameset,
actually, and my friend Dave Towle (whom you might have heard announcing bike races) was trying to sell it. It was a
Panasonic team issue Raleigh that he bought from a friend on the team. I sure didn’t need that Raleigh, but it was
so damn cool I couldn’t resist. It
looked like these bikes:
Besides how
cool those bikes look, what do you notice about them? That’s right:
both have Simplex Retrofriction shifters! Now, this is actually kind of
remarkable. You’ve got a Dutch pro team riding
English Raleighs, and the team’s component sponsor is the Italian company Campagnolo, but their
guys are using French shifters made by Simplex.
I don’t know if all those Raleighs had Simplex shifters, but those two clearly
do, and so did mine: though it was
otherwise a bare frame, the shifters were already mounted on there, so Dave
threw them in. I built up the rest of
the bike with a mishmash of parts, just to have it on the road, and that’s how
I became introduced to the Retrofrictions.
Instantly I
realized they were the greatest friction shifters ever made. They have a spring in them that works against
the spring in the derailleur, so they don’t require so much friction to keep
the chain from slipping out of gear.
This has two benefits. One, the
action is glass-smooth. Two, the shifter
doesn’t work its way loose, a chronic problem with friction shifters that you
often don’t discover until your bike jumps out of gear. Remember in “Star Wars” how Darth Vader, in
the final dogfight sequence, keeps fiddling with these knobs on his
Tie-fighter’s joystick? Racers used to
do the same thing with the D-rings on their Campy shifters toward the end of a
race, just to make sure they didn’t have any unpleasant surprises.
Simplex was
the first company to make a spring-loaded shifter, but not the only one: Suntour had their “Power” shifters in the
early ‘80s:
I had these
on my second road bike. The problem with
the Suntour Power shifters was that in addition to the spring they had a
ratchet, which was pointless and noisy.
Plus, they were cheap and pretty ugly, whereas the Simplex Retrofriction
are beautifully made. I can’t figure out
how a company as generally lame as Simplex managed to produce such an excellent
product. I’d be no less astonished if
Burger King introduced a grass-fed Kobe beef burger with prosciutto and
imported Gruyere on an artisanal semolina bun.
My second pair of Retrofrictions
Alas, it was
too good to last. My best friend, Peter,
won a Rossin frameset in the Red Zinger Mini Classic and—being on a paperboy’s
salary himself—built it up with Suntour Pro Superbe. I can’t remember if he begged me to sell him
my Retrofrictions, or I just took pity in him for his terrible Superbe
shifters, but suffice to say I felt honor-bound to help him out. In retrospect, I’m surprised I felt that
magnanimous, given that if it hadn’t been for him, I’d have won the Mini Zinger and that Rossin! Then again, this was his flagship racing
bike, and I barely rode the Raleigh. (By
the time I got it, that bike had been all ridden out. I’d describe its road feel as
“cadaverous.”) So Pete got the
Retrofrictions, and by the time I bought the Rossin off him five years later,
he’d worn them out.
(The Retrofriction
springs have a lifespan. I have it on good authority that you can replace them, but am warned that “the spring is a tight fit
around the central shaft and its removal and replacement will test your
ingenuity and patience!”) I didn’t need
the shifters anyway; I was firmly committed to indexed shifting by that point. (I was the first guy around to have the new
Dura-Ace 8-speed drivetrain, because the shop my brother worked for was
gradually going under and his paychecks tended to bounce, so he paid himself in
components, which he ordered via the shop’s line of credit and then sold to
me.)
Not needing
any more shifters didn’t stop me from getting another pair of Simplex Retrofrictions
when I got the chance. While working at
a bike shop in Berkeley I stumbled across a pair in a box in the office. They weren’t for sale; oddly enough, these
shifters never seemed to be available in any shop or mail-order outfit. After the demise of the Peugeot pro team, I
don’t think any team officially used them (though at least a couple of teams
used Mavic-branded Retrofrictions). These
shifters I found in the shop, provenance unknown, were just sitting in the box
doing nothing. I couldn’t believe my
eyes. I held them out to the shop owner
and said, “Do you know what these are?!” He said oh yes, he was well aware of what
he had there. I looked him right in the
eye and said, “I’m taking these.” I had
no plan for them, other than to own them.
My boss didn’t object; perhaps he
knew, as I did, that you can’t stand in the way of destiny.
I didn’t
have a bike to put them on and considered acquiring one just for that
purpose. (It’s a testament to the glory
of these shifters that I can’t even remember which friend of mine had expressed
the same idea. I think it was John Pelster, my old UCSB and current EBVC teammate.)
Alas, I had no money, and as a starving student could no longer afford
to buy another bike just because I felt like it. But I ended up using those shifters before I
expected to.
Simplex saved me!
That year—it
was 1990—my Team Miyata vas the victim of a car rack accident (follow that link and look closely at the first photo and you’ll see
the broken-off fork tip and caved-in top tube). So I bought a new frame from a buddy; he’d
been given it years before from his team, and hadn’t ever built it up. It was a Guerciotti, with old-school
Campy dropouts, and I think the derailleur hanger was longer than what had been
on the Miyata. What’s worse, my rear
derailleur was slightly bent, which—combined with the longer derailleur hanger
on the Guerciotti—meant my indexed shifting wouldn’t work right. I had just moved to the Bay Area, had run out of money, and was trying to earn a
spot on the UC Berkeley cycling “A” team, all with a bike that wouldn’t shift
right, and I was so overwhelmed and frustrated I almost quit the sport. I mean, if a seasoned mechanic, who’s down to
just a single racing bike, can’t even get it
working right, what hope does he have in life? But the Retrofrictions saved me! I slapped those babies on the Guerc and
everything was fine. After five years of
racing with indexed shifters, it was actually fun going back to friction. I ended up using those shifters for the next
eight years, until a freak bike tune-up accident ruined the right lever.
Here’s the
sad tale. I don’t know if this is a French
thing or what, but the little socket where the gear cable’s head sits is a bit
small on these shifters. In other words,
the cable head has a snugger fit to begin with, and—unknowingly compounding
this—I had, somewhere along the line, installed a Campy cable. Campy cables had a slightly oversized head,
and it must have worked its way into the shifter over time. So when the cable wore out, I absolutely
could not get that cable head out of the shifter. I finally clipped the cable off at the head and
tried to drill it out, but I aimed poorly and did terrible cosmetic damage to
the shifter without accomplishing anything.
I was so bummed out at the loss of the shifter, and the inability to
replace it (this was before eBay), that to cheer myself up I bought a whole new
gruppo, 9-speed Dura-Ace with STI shift levers (i.e., shifters built into the
brake levers). See? There is
some benefit to finishing college and becoming a working stiff!
Back on Retrofriction
Recently a
friend, who is restoring an old Campy-equipped road bike, asked if I had any
Campy shifters I could sell him. Well, I
couldn’t lie: I had a pair on Full Slab,
my beloved commuter bike.
Actually, my
friend offered to trade a crankset for the shifters, which is a pretty sweet
deal. The only problem, of course, is
that I use Full Slab regularly and would need something to replace the Campy
shifters with.
I knew my ruined
Retrofriction shifters would be waiting for me, buried in The Box where I’ve
been accumulating cast-off parts for decades.
It’s always a little scary cobbling together something from The Box, and
I wasn’t looking forward to reliving the torment of the Retrofriction shifter I
so stupidly ruined. Sure enough, I found
it right away. I also found Pete’s (i.e.,
Dave’s) old Retrofrictions, and wondered if I could possibly move the (good) guts
from my badly-drilled shifter to the handle of Pete’s worn-out one, and thereby
cobble together a perfect shifter.
But I’m an
adult now, with a career and a wife and two kids, and my hands have gone soft
from decades of office work, and when it comes right down to it I’m just not a
good enough mechanic to tear into anything that’s both a) French-engineered,
and b) bound up with a spring. So I
charged up my drill and had another go at the old cable head. This time I started from the flip side of the
shifter, and though I missed the original hole completely, I ultimately (re-)created
a good hole to feed a cable through.
Note that in the process I came up with a valid use for a phone book, of
which I’d been previously convinced there was none. The yellow pages provided an expendable
surface to catch the drill after it finally burst through the back of the
shifter.
The
result? Life is good! Full Slab has never been so smartly attired. The left shifter is perfect. The right shifter ends up being pretty worn
out after eight years and some 50,000 miles, but it still works. Best of all, just riding that bike to the
train station and reaching for one of those levers is a trip down memory lane,
a sped-up review of everything you just read here along with about a hundred
more things I couldn’t manage to fit in to this story. Ah, the splendid nexus between bikes and
memory!