John Butterfield’s 1954 Peugeot
John Butterfield’s 54 Peugeot
A high point during bicycling’s lowest time.
Not many adults rode bicycles in America in 1954. Percentage-participation might have been better, but overall the fewest adults got out on a bike in the mid ’50’s. Our friend John Butterfield was an exception, and we have some great pictures that prove he was riding his Peugeot racing bike around San Diego decades before cyclists documented every ride with Strava and a GoPro camera.
John and his bike in 1955
When not working for the Navy, John raced at the amateur level (pretty well too, as he just missed making it onto the 1956 U.S. Olympic team). He and his Peugeot tore it up in the Chicago area and on the west coast. Bill Jacoby coached John, and considered him to be a good sprinter. Besides racing, John kept bicycle wheels spinning even when he wasn’t riding. John served the sport by managing the velodrome in San Diego and sitting on the American Bicycling League and United States Cycling Federation boards.
This old Peugeot is a good one. Outfitted with Simplex’s LJ543 derailleur (named for Simplex chief Lucien Juy), a rod-actuated front derailleur, light weight racing wheels with Super Course rims and silky smooth hubs. The bike has some solid equipment from a time when performance and reliability were suspect qualities for road bikes
Peugeot Head Badge
Supercourse Ad-Hoc rims
Lever-type front derailleur
The rear derailleur deserves some notice. The LJ543 was really the best mechanism that Simplex ever came up with. Two cables operate the derailleur. Remove the steel cover plate, and you’ll see a steel pull chain (like on a 3-speed hub) sliding through the grease-filled compartment while it actuates the telescoping pulley arm. The second cable rotates the pulley arm, fine-tuning the chain tension.
Simplex L. Juy 543 deraiileur
Tough as nails, the LJ543 could handle up to 5 cogs on the back wheel with a 12 tooth spread. The 1955 Paris-Roubaix race was won aboard a LJ543 equipped bike, as was the mountainous Galibier stage of the Tour de France.
Sorry to break it to those of you who adored your mid-1960’s Peugeots and Gitanes, but the plastic derailleurs that Simplex came up with in those years were pieces of junk.
