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Your trail: Home arrow The Attic arrow Attic What IZIT #60
Watch your head!
You might run into that 1955 Elgin Bluebird hanging from the rafters. Yes, it's true. The boss never throws anything away. It just magically vanishes from the shop and ends up here. If you've given up hope of finding that low gear pawl for a Hercules three speed, drop Davis an email davis@bikeman.com. If we can't find it for you, well, uh, we can't find it for you.

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Attic What IZIT


Retro Grouch or just too smart to follow every new trend in your latest cycling magazine. Bikeman knows what that is all about. Bikeman is constantly finding interesting Old School parts and accessroies in the Attic that bring back both good and bad memories. We hope the Attic What IZIT will do the same for you. So browse our index and test your own Old School knowledge. Each Monday we will be posting a new item for you to guess on.
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Yestertech


Covering the latest attic news and product updates to satisfy your old school cravings. Check back each week for updates. If you have a cool bike you would like highlited in the Retro Times drop us a line and include a picture.
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Catalogs of the Past

Catalogs From the Past
Bikeman enjoys leafing through old catalogs from time to time and we know most of you do as well. Here is a chance to take a look into the past with manufactures catalogs for days long gone. Some may even be put up for sale. The catatlogs will be complete in PDF format.
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Attic What IZIT #60 E-mail
The Attic - Attic What IZIT
This one should be fun, yes it is a derailleur.   The winning answer will include the Make, Model and Functionality of the item.  Personal experience and creativity is worth big bonus points. The winner will receive a $10 Gift Certificate. 

click to enlarge
click to enlarge


Think you know What IT IZ...?  Submit you answer by commenting below.    
Comments (11)Add Comment
0
...
written by David Osborne, March 24, 2009
I'm gonna say "Mavic rear derailleur". I've never seen one like in the picture, but the barrell adjuster looks just like one that I had on a Mavic. I'm gonna say early 80s, because everything that they made by the mid 80s had their name all over it.
0
What IT IZ...
written by Michael, March 31, 2009
It looks like an Ofmega "Mistral" road bike rear derailleur from the 80's... it was probably pushing a chain across a 5-speed freewheel, or possibly one of those new-fangled six-cog set-ups.
0
...
written by andy, April 20, 2009
an Ofmega composite rear derailleur. It's cutting edge design allowed it to read your mind and shift before you even thought you wanted to. I am not sure what the durability was like because I ended up with a shimano 600 drivetrain instead
0
Plastic Fantastic
written by Brandon Ives, April 27, 2009
This was part of a whole group from Italian maker Ofmega using I believe they called it 'nylon resin' to make the parts lighter. The parts were just too cool for school and broke during a hard shift. They also came in various colors, my favorite being the pink.
0
Ofmega Mistral
written by K, July 16, 2009
Looks like an 1980's Ofmega Mistral - Black, 3/32" friction dérailleur. Made of only the finest of hi-tech polymers.
0
Attic What IZIT #60
written by John Bradley, July 29, 2009
#60 is an Ofmega Mistral 6spd rear deraileur. They were found on some Trek models. I remember them from my days at the old Denver Spoke. A friend of mine was the product mgr. I often thought they looked liked they were carved from bars of soap. They did produce these in a variety of colors, including a pink one. While the derailleurs were odd, I do recall thinking the Mistral cranks were pretty hot.
0
Attic What IZIT #60 -- Fooled Again!
written by Joe Harris, August 20, 2009
Yes! Yet another piece of equipment I shamelessly bought into because of marketing, Italo-cool factor, and downright ignorance of the laws of material dynamics!

This is an Ofmega Mistral derailleur circa 1982-‘83. These were intro’d in 1982 as a high tech, low weight step forward in components manufacturing in response to Titanium doo-daddery additions to Campy’s Super Record lineup, which made SR the lightweight King at the time.

Better! Lighter! Faster Shifting! Fantastical Engineering!... BULLSH*T! My FIRST Mistral was a black one just like the one pictured, and it lasted all of two months before the parallelogram pivots bowed out from their anchor points and magically ejected into a spray of springs, plates, and bloodcurdling rage while climbing Airport Hill in Worcester, MA. Thank God I could coast and push home from the halfway point.

My SECOND Mistral was a little pink masterpiece marketed as the Maglia Rosa model. It was so cool when new (it matched my metallic pink Pinarello), but one thing about brightly-dyed thermoplastic is that it UV’s and ozones quickly from the color it started out to a faded imitation of itself. In this case, it became meat-colored as the season wore on. It was like the Predator slaughtered a victim, harvested its appendix, and strung it from a chain on my dropout as a grisly trophy of the hunt. YOU get bonus points for knowing the movie reference. Anyhow, this fugly oil-fouled beast lasted a further two months before I came to my senses and hooked up a Nuovo Record.

Ofmega made some great stuff, don’t get me wrong. I still have a Mistral crankset in my “Attic” that is lighter and stronger than most of its contemporaries. But I personally think we should invade Italy and impose rough Chuck Norris justice on everyone associated with this brand for pushing these underthought, overmarketed, disposable artifacts of pure Italian engineering hubris on us. Roundhouse kicks for everyone!
0
Ofmega rear derailleur?
written by Dan Altneu, September 12, 2009
I believe that's an early/mid eighties Ofmega rear derailleur, and it had plastic parts.
0
ofmega mundial
written by Dan Altneu, September 12, 2009
ofmega mundial to be exact...
0
Attic What IT IZ #60
written by jeff, September 21, 2009
It is a Suntour RD that mounted on the chain stay, in front of the dropout. I believe it was XC Ltd, or XC7000...I don't think it was a top level part (ie XCPro).
0
What IZ IT #60
written by M Attie, October 22, 2009
No problem...that is an Ofmega Mistral rear derailleur, probably circa 1982 or 1983. The folks at Ofmega were trying to "innovate" by using a "hi-tech polymer" (translation: plastic.) This allowed Ofmega to make the Mistral in array of colors, including yellow, light blue and an especially practical pink. I never used one personally, but imagine they worked about as well as a 1963 Campy Gran Sport.

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