Fiamme
Fiammes were one of the first ferruled rims, which allowed them to make them notably thinner than non-ferruled rims that had preceded them. The engineering wasn't quite worked out, and the alloys weren't what you get today, so they tended to split the ferrule rivet and the alloy was soft enough that they were rather prone to flat spots from hitting road irregularities. Because the alloy was so soft, at least they didn't actually split and fracture at the spoke holes. There's no anodizing, no finish of any kind except the decal, so they get a little oxidized with time and every drop of perspiration leaves its mark. They were definitely one of the nicest rims way back when, but I wouldn't think of them except for a classic restoration at this point. Also, they have a shallow tire bed, which doesn't mate well with most current tubular tires. As a result, you don't get as good a gluing job (you want your glue job to be as thin as possible for the greatest strength, and excess glue is detrimental to adhesion, but it's irrelevant if the tire only is glued on right at the stitching.
Yellow label tubulars were very lightweight, for riders less than 165lbs.
Their assets and name were bought by FiR, who produced (cheaper then usual production) rims for OEM use under the Fiamme name, and even some tubular rims, but they disappeared from the catalog in the late 1990's.
Yellow label tubulars were very lightweight, for riders less than 165lbs.
Their assets and name were bought by FiR, who produced (cheaper then usual production) rims for OEM use under the Fiamme name, and even some tubular rims, but they disappeared from the catalog in the late 1990's.
Martano (Italy)
Nisi (Italy)
Super Champion (France)
Arc-en-Ciel
Wolber (France)
Aspin
Aubisque
Scheeren
German-made Scheeren (pronounced "Sharon") Standards and Scheeren Weltmeisters. I never used Weltmeisters (too expensive), but I understand that they were made of very thin aluminum reinforced with balsa wood inside the rim. You'd glue on the lightest and best road tires of the 70's, Clement Criterium Setas and Seta Extras, which were 230 and 220 grams (seta = silk).