Nivex derailleurs

Établissement Nivex was based in Villemomble, a suburb to the east of Paris. It appears to have been founded in the mid 1930s, possibly 1937, and it is possible that the main person involved was an Italian, Pierre Gardini. The emphasis from the very beginning seems to have been on producing very high quality components for cycle transmissions.

The Nivex derailleur was a highly developed, steel, twin-cable, parallelogram derailleur that mounted below the chainstay. It is reputed to have delivered a quick, accurate, reliable gear shift. The derailleur was patented in late 1937, but is often described as being launched in 1938.

The derailleur was paired with a clever hub quick-release system that was designed to make it easy to mend a puncture without too much messing about with your chain and gears. Taken as a whole, the Nivex derailleur and hub system was arguably the most advanced available at the time. It was particularly widely used by Alex Singer, the legendary Parisian builder of upmarket touring bicycles.

Many people regard the Nivex as the 'original' parallelogram derailleur - although that is up for discussion! Frank Berto reports that:

"Ernest Csuka, the well known builder of Singer cycles, told Raymond Henry (a French cycling historian) that at the 1947 or 1948 Paris Cycle Show, Tullio Campagnolo took a searching look at the Nivex derailleur and bought two of them. Some years later, Campagnolo brought out the Gran Sport parallelogram derailleur."

I believe that production of the Nivex continued into the 1950s.