Louis-Eugène Morel’s company was based in Malakoff, in the South of Paris. After the second World War he developed a derailleur with a rather distinctive sealed aluminium body. As you pulled the cable, it rotated a cog wheel inside this body that drove a cylinder in and out, moving the pulley cage across the gears.

Louis-Eugène first patented a version of this derailleur with a single pulley, but rapidly saw the error of his ways and patented the same basic design but with a double pulley cage. An interesting feature of the double pulley cage was that it could be ‘opened’ to fit or unship the chain.

In an age of flimsy, pressed steel, derailleurs, the Morel has a pleasingly solid and integrated look to it.