A classic combination. ~ Jacques Anquetil had used a similar "adapteur" with double TA chainrings and also fitted to a Stronglight 49d to win his first Tour de France in 1957 on his Helyett. The Stronglight's professional racing crankset, the Model 57, was introduced later that year and was the start of Stronglight's long run of cranksets made for 122 mm. bolt circle chainrings. The versatile 49D which allows much smaller rings for touring bikes than the minimum of 38t on the racing models is still my preferred crankset... for ANY bike. This particular adapteur ring is made for a single chainring and the "shelf" will accept a 1/8" track ring. I backed this thinner chainring with simple spacers to push the chainring flush with the plane of the adapteur at the front edge. Lovely domed chainring BOLTS - not nuts! Those seem to have been a Specialities TA exclusive. Not only are they pretty, they actually help to center TA's 8 mm. socket tool into position on the hex-head bolts. I really wish I could find a few hundred more of these! The threads are 5 mm x 0.75 - which is a different thread than the similar looking domed bolts which TA had used for mounting toe-clips on their pedals. As I recall, those pedal bolts were not even standard ISO metric 5 mm x 0.8... but rather something more odd (possibly 5 mm x 28 gauge?). The 9 mm hex-nuts which hold the adapteur ring onto the crank arm are classic Stronglight. Unseen on the back side of the crank arm are hex-heads of the bolts which accept a 7 mm. wrench. I always preferred these to the TA style [ref. 25] which used a more common slotted round flanged nut (similar to those on typical vintage Campagnolo and most modern chainring mounting bolt nuts). Even TA's own tools never seemed to fit well on them and the small tools often slipped. This was never a problem with simple hex bolts and nuts. Unfortunately, many early Stronglight mounting bolt sets which found their way to the US were quickly damaged because metric shop tools were still uncommon in a bicycle market long accustomed to domestic (British standard) tools - which easily rounded the small hex heads of the bolts. DSCF4407

Thin and yellow flower photographed on Kass Plateau near Satara in India. Common name: Dalzell's Yellow Balsam • Marathi: ????? ????? Pivla terda Botanical name: Impatiens dalzellii Family: Balsaminaceae (Balsam family)