This derailleur was amazingly innovative. It is a proper parallelogram design, mounting on the drop out, with a low gear stop screw. With all this technology it came on to the market 8 years before Campagnolo’s Gran Sport.

Why is it a forgotten irrelevance? Possibly because of a lack of marketing punch, and probably because it was a single pulley design - and so doomed to deliver a relatively sloppy change.

I know of four variations of this basic design:

• A bronze version branded Super JIC which has a cable adjuster and a relatively slim outer parallelogram arm.
• An aluminium version also branded Super JIC which also has a cable adjuster, but has a chubbier outer parallelogram arm.
• An aluminium version that is identical to the aluminium Super JIC, except that it has no cable adjuster and is unbranded and sold as the Super-Inax Sport.
• A steel version that is branded Super JIC and has a cable adjuster, but has a very different b-knuckle and a differently shaped pulley cage.

At one point or another, this design of derailleur seems to have been called JIC Champion Sport, Super-JIC 49, Super-JIC Sport, Super JIC Course or Super-Inax Sport. I have decided to run with just two of these: Super JIC Course and Super-Inax Sport.

Finally I would note that these derailleurs share a number of distinctive small parts with the earlier (and very weird) Super-Inax models with a b-pivot that allows movement in both the vertical and horizontal plane. They all clearly come from the same factory.

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This is an example of the bronze Super JIC version described above. Some of its features are

• It has a bronze b-knuckle with the top parallelogram pivot about 40mm below the b-pivot.
• It has a cable adjuster.
• The outer parallelogram arm is bronze, and is relatively slim with a flange with no lightening hole drilled in it.
• The pulley wheel is 30mm in diameter.
• The pulley cage plates are relatively large.
• It has a, slightly alarming, glossy bronze finish.
• It is branded Super JIC.

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• Derailleur brands: JIC
• Country: France
• Date of introduction: 1942?
• Date of this example: unknown
• Model no.: unknown
• Weight: 283g including hanger plate
• Maximum cog: 22 teeth?
• Total capacity: 8 teeth
• Pulley centre to centre: not applicable
• Index compatibility: friction
• Chain width: 3/32” and 1/8”?
• Logic: low normal
• B pivot: sprung
• P pivot: none
• Materials: bronze rear knuckle and parallelogram arms, steel front knuckle, pulley cage plate and hanger plate.