Mark Janeba wrote:
>>Are you sure it's not a Lark ?? They look pretty similar, if my badly
>>rusted memory serves ... One has a "moon unit" metal C-shaped guard
>>as you look at the freewheel, with many large holes all the way along
>>it ... a popular style during the moon program, 1965-1973.
The Lark and the Eagle were identical, except that the Eagle had an
additional "bumper" to protect it from impact, and an extra heavy duty
adapter claw.
These were the best shifting derailers money could buy through the early
'80s. Nothing else came close. They're also probably the sturdiest
derailers ever made. As to weight...well, you can't have everything.
They also had a great "pre-selector" feature: The cable anchor bolt was
mounted on a pivoting arm with a stiff spring (didn't require a separate
spring, it used the normally unoccupied end of the parallelogram return
spring.)
With this system, if you forgot to downshift as you came to a stop, you
could just yank the lever back to the position that corresponded to
whichever gear you preferred for starting up. With most derailers this
would bust the cable, but with the Lark/Eagle the spring loaded arm
would deflect, then as soon as you started to pedal, the derailer would
down shift to the desired gear.
I've got a 400LX on my Rambouillet, I think this was the last Shimano
model to have this nifty feature. Never understood why they stopped
doing it...
Sheldon "For The Birds" Brown
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