The Zeus Alfa Junior was designed as a budget, pressed steel derailleur for mass-produced bikes aimed at spotty youths with racy pretensions. Zeus, ever the experts at appropriating the designs of others, based the Alfa Junior on the venerable Huret Svelto.

Zeus did add a couple of touches that were all their own - and which add to this derailleur’s ‘racing’ pedigree. The Alfa Junior fits onto a Campagnolo hanger (rather than onto Huret’s idiosynchratic version), and the pulley cage pivot is off-set from the axis of the pulley wheels (rather than being concentric with the top pulley). The pulleys themselves are unusual in that they do not have metal ‘dust seal’ plates.

A pleasant derailleur typical of Europe in the early 1970s, but no match for the torrent of innovation that was coming out of Japan at the time.

---

• Derailleur brands: Zeus
• Themes: Small wheels on my wagon
• Country: Spain
• Date of introduction: 1970
• Date of this example: unknown
• Model no.: unknown
• Weight: 240g including hanger plate
• Maximum cog: 28 teeth?
• Total capacity: 28 teeth?
• Pulley centre to centre: 46mm
• Index compatibility: friction
• Chain width: 3/32”
• Logic: top normal
• B pivot: unsprung
• P pivot: sprung
• Materials: steel

Ref. 162