10 Vintage Velo

The Tour de France, first held in 1903, didn’t allow derailleurs to be used until 1937. The following year, Gino Bartali was outfitted with the Vittoria Margherita. He had the second generation of the Italian component that featured “flippers” on the top of the drive-side chainstay. “To change gears, you had to de-tension the chain,” Mike Barry Sr., said recently. He held up parts from a few models of Margheritas that he had in the Mariposa Bicycles shop. “You moved the lever forward. Then, you backpedalled and turned the knob at the top of the lever.” The knob activated the flippers, which moved the chain from one cog to another. You had to backpedal because the flippers were on the top run of the chain. “Once you selected a sprocket, you stopped pedalling, pushed the lever back again to tension the chain and away you went.”

“It was faster than getting off the bike to change gears, but the French had perfectly normal derailleurs with cables and levers. It’s looney,” Barry said about the equipment Bartali used in 1938. “The French must have been laughing into their sleeves. Nevertheless, Bartali still won the Tour.” The third generation of the Margherita had the flippers positioned on the bottom run of the chain, so the riders could pedal forward to change gears.

Although Bartali stuck with components from his country, Barry doesn’t think the cyclist’s choices were driven by nationalism. Well, it was likely economic nationalism that he couldn’t escape rather than his own pride in his country’s products. Barry figures the duties at the time kept Italian riders on Italian parts and French riders on French parts.

“The war came in 1939,” Barry said. “There was no Tour de France for years. When Bartali came back in 1948, you would have thought he would have found a more efficient gearing system. But no. He didn’t. He chose the Campagnolo Corsa, which was even more complicated to ride than the Margherita. It’s crackers.”— Matthew pioro