The Favorit PWB is named for Praha, Warszawa and Berlin, the three capital cities that hosted the Peace Race, often referred to as the ‘Tour de France of the east’. I seem to remember Barum (a Czech tubular tyre manufacturer) having a model called PBW for Praha, Berlin and Warszawa, for a similar reason. Praha, Warszawa, Berlin was the order in which the cities were visited in the Peace Races of 1960, 1963, 1966, 1970, 1973, 1976, 1979 and 1982. However, neither a Czech rider nor the Czech team won in any of these years - so I am not entirely sure whether this derailleur celebrates anything in particular - or just the Peace Race in general.

The Favorit PWB is a solidly constructed (heavy) and quite well finished steel derailleur very distantly inspired by the Campagnolo Record. It has one sprung pivot and, in this racing form, the pulley cage pivot off-set from the axis of the pulley wheels. It was, however, designed by someone with a mind of their own. The adjustable cable outer stop is mounted on the inner parallelogram cage plate, as on a SunTour, the hanger bolt has a unique pin mechanism that limits the ‘swing’ of the unsprung pivot, and the adjusters are thumb-wheels of ingenious design, slightly reminiscent of the Simplex Juy Export 61, but actually slightly cleverer yet. The plain circular steel pulley wheels have rather smooth ball bearing races in them.

This example is the standard ‘racing’ version, with the pulley cage pivot between the pulley wheels, but off-set from their axis. It has distinctive asymmetric pulley wheels. I have left the hanger restrictor pin in the somewhat odd position in the photo, because this is how I have ever seen it on a number of examples.

• Derailleur brands: Favorit
• Country: Czech Republic - Czechoslovakia at the time
• Date of introduction: 1964
• Date of this example: unknown
• Model no.: unknown
• Weight: 307g including hanger plate
• Maximum cog: 24 teeth?
• Total capacity: 24 teeth?
• Pulley centre to centre: 46mm
• Index compatibility: friction
• Chain width: 3/32”
• Logic: top normal
• B pivot: unsprung
• P pivot: sprung
• Materials: steel