Huret Jubilee (2200 1976? 1977? 1978? version)

The Huret Jubilee is a tiny polished jewel of a derailleur. Widely admired for its classic simplicity and astoundingly light weight - it is a star turn in any derailleur collection.

I believe that the Jubilee was released in 1972 to celebrate Huret's 50th year in business. As such it was a 'halo' product, a no-expenses spared, top quality, item - all aluminium forgings, lushly chromed small parts and full ball-bearing pulley wheels. Light weight is completely front and centre; the head of the cable clamp bolt is delicately thin, the adjustment screws are the tiniest I have ever seen and the smallest b-pivot allen bolt in the known universe... is also hollow.

As is always the way, the weight of the Jubilee continued to rise throughout its history. The 1972 version of the 2200 weighed a blistering 137g. By 1981 it had a funky drilled pulley cage, but had put on an extra 10% and weighed 150g. Part of the reason for this was that the Jubilee erred on the fragile side. This is a derailleur for close gear ratios, for the experienced cyclist, and for your 'good' bike that you clean fanatically and lubricate religiously. Fit something else on your 'winter' bike.

Huret could never stop fiddling with their designs, so there is a plethora of slightly different versions of the Jubilee. I have tried to organise them, below, into some kind of chronology. It is reasonably easy to be clear and confident about the beginning of this series and also about the end of the series - but the middle years are just a tangled skein of complexity. But here goes anyway:

In 1972 two models were released, the 2200 for Huret fork ends and the 2240 for Campagnolo ends. Both had a pulley cage with two 'struts' at the tension pulley.
The 1972 2200 had a short parallelogram spring, that engages with the cable clamp arm, and a short b-knuckle.
The 1972 2240 also had a short parallelogram spring, but had a longer b-knuckle with an integral flange to engage with the Campagnolo end, and also with a reinforced mounting hole for the spring.
I believe that in 1973 both the 2200 and the 2240 were improved with a new longer parallelogram spring. This spring engages with a pivot on the p-knuckle. There were no other changes to either design.

...

Possibly, sometime around 1974-1976, the 2200 adopted the longer b-knuckle that had previously been used on the 2240. However this knuckle was adapted to fit a Huret fork end.
The Huret Jubilee was possibly not made in 1975. It is certainly missing from the 1975 catalogue.
Possibly, sometime around 1974-1976, the b-knuckle was redesigned to accept an Allen bolt with an 11.5mm shaft and a distinct step at the point where it faced up against the dropout - removing the need for a locknut.
Also, possibly in 1976 the 2200 and 2240 were upgraded with a new pulley cage with three 'struts' at the tension pulley.
Possibly in 1978, Huret stopped producing their distinctive dropouts and adopted a new design that copied Campagnolo. At this point they also seem to have discontinued the 2240, which is exactly the model that would have fitted on their new end. Weird.

...

Certainly by 1979 the 2200 was upgraded with a plate at the b-pivot that incorporated an adjustment screw, so that it was certainly compatible with a Campagnolo end, with the new Huret end. And possibly, if you removed the plate, also compatible with an old Huret end. From this point onwards the anodising on the derailleur gave a satin, rather than polished, finish.
Probably in 1981 the 2200 was again improved - this time with drilled pulley cage plates. There was yet another change to the Allen bolt at the b-pivot - which now returns to a 10mm diameter shaft and has an expanding cone mechanism to lock it into the dropout thread.
Finally, sometime around 1985, the Huret Jubilee got a new badge and became the Sachs-Huret Jubilee.

One problem with composing this chronology is that I cannot fully trust images in Huret's catalogues. In particular:

As mentioned above, the Huret Jubilee does not appear in the 1975 catalogue at all.
The 1976 catalogue shows two different versions on the same page.
The Jubilee is generally pictured from an angle that makes it very hard to determine the details of the fitting to dropout.
In the various parts explosions that feature in many of the catalogues, parts that are clearly different may have the same part number.

This is another, typically confusing, mid-period, Huret Jubilee (2200), with a bad case of road-rash. Some of its features are:

It is designed to fit onto both a Huret and (more importantly) a Campagnolo dropout. There is also (finally) a b-pivot adjuster screw.
The logo has 'Huret' in written in gold.
It has a short b-knuckle, with the centre line of the parallelogram pivots about 18mm from the centre line of the b-pivot Allen bolt
The b-pivot Allen bolt is 18mm long, has a 11.5mm diameter shaft and does not have a locknut.
It has a long parallelogram spring, which mounts into a reinforced, hole in the b-knuckle.
There is no plate at the p-pivot to restrict the movement of the pulley cage, but there is an aluminium spacing washer.
The pulley cage plates are undrilled and have three 'struts' at the tension pulley.

Why is this one, again, so confusing? Because:

The short b-knuckle is generally associated with early Jubilees, perhaps up to 1974 or 1975 (as an aside I have not seen another short b-knuckle that takes an 11.5mm diameter b-pivot bolt).
But it has a pulley cage with three 'struts' at the tension pulley. It is generally thought that Jubilees with this pulley cage date from 1976 or later.
And it has the b-pivot adjuster plate and screw that is generally thought of as being from 1978 or later.

Of course it could be that an over-enthusastic mechanic has swapped a whole host of component parts at some point. But these kind of confusions happen so often with mid-period Jubilees that you begin to wonder how big the pack of over-enthusiastic mechanics could have been, roaming wild through the bike shops of France.

The Huret Jubilee has a tiny spring with a loop at each end to grip each of the adjustment screws, to prevent them shaking loose. This tiny spring is held in place by an even tinier peg. This example has lost this peg - which is odd, but has no effect on the operation of the derailleur. I have one other Jubilee that has also lost this tiny peg. Weird.

In some of the photos, I have disengaged the pulley cage spring to allow the derailleur to adopt a more normal position.