The Tectoron KS-01 is a Campagnolo Super Record recreated in Leipzig in the style of a Soviet Tractor. Fundamentally it is all there; it feels strong and tight, the pulleys spin smoothly and it is not that heavy. Unlike many Favorit or Kharkov models it contains no steel or plastic major components - it is all aluminium. And there are touches that indicate a commitment to fine engineering - I have been told that the parallelogram cages have bronze sleeves at the pivots and the pulleys either have two part bronze bearings or full-blown sealed bearing units. All well and good - but no opportunity to omit flair, charm or refinement has been passed up - the Tectoron KS-01 remains a crude and brutish object.

Some kind of Tectoron derailleur is listed on a few websites as being fitted to Diamant road racing bikes from about 1978 onwards. However the pulley cage plates on all my examples are clearly a copy of the shape that Campagnolo only introduced on the 1979 Super Record - so perhaps Tectoron had an earlier style with a different pulley cage (although, if this is the case, one might expect my examples to be named KS-02). Because of all this, I have spuriously guessed that the sequence of events might be something like:

• The earliest generation, perhaps from around 1985, might be my sophisticated, polished example with no logo and sealed bearing pulleys. This might possibly have been some kind of special item produced for race teams that were relatively pampered by the state.
• The second generation, perhaps from 1987, might be my examples with the logo on the outer parallelogram plates and the plain pulley cage plates. The black example in this collection had a warranty card dated 1990, indicating that this was the year it was sold, although it may have been manufactured sometime earlier than this.
• The third generation might, perhaps from 1989, might be the version with the dimpled pulley cage plates. This is the roughest and least sophisticated of the three generations.

I am proposing that the trend here is one of going from relative refinement to relative crudity. This is often the trend with derailleurs over time, but I would propose that it is particularly so with derailleurs from the former Soviet empire. Initial competence, pride and enthusiasm seem to have been, inevitably, replaced with sloppiness, lethargy and ennui. Only the Czechs seemed able to resist this relentless tide and maintain some level of quality.

Note that the KS-01s with logos belong to the select band of derailleurs with their writing upside down - see also the Sugino VIC.

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I think this is an example of the third generation of Tectoron KS-01, perhaps from 1989. Some features of this particular example are:

• The knuckles are silver aluminium finish.
• It has a logo on the outer parallelogram plate.
• The pulley cage plates are finished with an alluring industrial dimpled pattern. The edges on the pulley cage are fairly crude, sharp and roughly finished.
• The pulley wheels have plain bearings, but with two part bronze inserts, like a real Campagnolo Super Record.
• The pulley bolts have slotted, counter-sunk heads on the inside and a nut on the outside - again like a real Campagnolo Super Record.

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• Derailleur brands: Tectoron
• Country: Germany - DDR at the time
• Date of introduction: 1989?
• Date of this example: unknown
• Model no.: KS-01
• Weight: 211g
• Maximum cog: 28 teeth?
• Total capacity: 28 teeth?
• Pulley centre to centre: 45mm
• Index compatibility: friction
• Chain width: 3/32”
• Logic: top normal
• B pivot: unsprung
• P pivot: sprung
• Materials: aluminium

Ref. 360