New Items

We have a couple of new items. These are all things I found in small quantities, but are special enough to be worth putting in the store.

First are Stronglight JDX94 headsets, also known as the R2D2 model. Originally intended for mountain bikes, this is also a great headset for road bikes that see a lot of rain and dirt. It uses the famous Stronglight needle bearings, but has triple seals. It also has an advanced self centering and self locking zytel (that's french for plasteek) ring so no lock nut is required. It requires a special wrench which is included. 122 grams. A very neat design. $45

Next are Edco Competition bottom brackets from Switzerland. Edco makes some of the nicest components and these sealed bearing BB are no exception. But what's really special is that they use two cups with lockring so they can be adjusted back and forth for a spot-on perfect chain line, it's that famous Swiss obsession with precision. $78.

It's hard to find nice old school front cable stops, especially with barrel adjusters. We have just a few chrome plated Dia Compe stops.

Finally we have some late model entry level Simplex derailleurs. I'm told these are much better than the early plastic models, but I have not used this version. Actually the plastic Simplexes usually shifted well when new, but wore out quickly. Only the models with plastic parallelograms were awful and gave Simplex a bad name. Anyway, they only cost $12 if you want to try one.

I'll have everything in the store over the next few days. There is some neat new stuff coming next week too.