At 04:40 hours on the morning of the 1st of September 1939 a Luftwaffe squadron of screaming Stukas attacked the town of Wieluń in Poland. Five minutes later the battleship Schleswig-Holstein open fire on a Polish military installation at Westerplatte on the Baltic coast. The German invasion of Poland had begun. Two days later, on the 3rd of September 1939, Neville Chamberlain, speaking with an accent that could cut glass, announced that Britain was at war with Germany. And sometime in that fateful month Cyclo released this rather pleasant catalogue.

I particularly like the Cyclo Home Exerciser on page 53 and the Cyclo Sperm Oil on page 54, which is hopefully manufactured from whale blubber...

The revamped Cyclo derailleur range for 1939 comprises:

• The Cyclo Two Speed.
• The Cyclo Three Speed.
• The Cyclo Four Speed.
• The Cyclo Oppy.
• The Cyclo Ace.
• The Cyclo Star.
• The Cyclo Witmy.
• (The Cyclo Poly is only shown in the spares section)

• Publisher: Cyclo Gear Company
• Country: UK
• Date: September 1939
• Derailleur brands: Cyclo Gear Company
• Derailleurs: Cyclo Standard, Cyclo Oppy, Cyclo Ace, Cyclo Star, Cyclo Witmy, Cyclo Poly