EBykr

Specialités TA is an absurdly small company for being so famous and well respected, as it has been for over 50 years. TA originally emphasized equipment for bicycle tourists but many riding greats have competed in events like the Tour de France on their equipment. Resoundingly, this tiny company managed to gross 3M EUR in 2003 with 60% of its output exported. Today the entire management team consists of but five persons overseeing a production staff of 38.

The TA product line appears similarly lean: the company makes bicycle cranksets and associated parts – chainrings, spiders, arms, pedals, and bottom brackets; headsets; and somewhat paradoxically among the best water bottles and waterbottle cages available. A popular crankset model – the Pro 5 – has remained in production nearly unchanged for some four decades yet is still uniquely state of the art.

Not bad for a company founded to promote an invention that was never commercially produced.

The “TA” in the company’s name stands for “Traction Avant”, referring to a front-wheel drive unit founder Georges Navet developed for bicycles shortly after World War II. He never perfected the design well enough for commercial production and the company’s name origin goes conspicuously unmentioned on their marketing material; instead, one’s attention is hurriedly directed to Navet’s original design of the aluminum chainring in 1947, which TA rightly claims was a significant step forward in the evolution of bicycle componentry.

Once TA found its niche the company gleefully dedicated itself to the pursuit of technical perfection, aesthetic brilliance and pure utility. The niche, though tightly focused, still has room for surprises. It’s one thing to produce chainrings and follow up with complete cranksets; that much is a natural outgrowth of customer demand. Likewise on offering bottom brackets. But to then produce specialized chainwheel protectors for mountain and cyclocross bikes takes it somewhat further. Most recently, TA has produced a broad line of chainwheel protectors including models for BMX bikes and a carbon version for serious cyclocross riders, plus inner protectors for granny gears, as well as guides to prevent chainsuck.

Behind this myriad product family lies a thoroughly modern, fully computerized manufacturing facility letting TA engineers do things like carefully design tooth profiles for optimized shifting and even construct many of their own production tools. No compromises here.

No compromises here. The company that claims to have pioneered aluminum chainrings has gone on to improve the alloys it employs (presently 7075 T6) in the interests of durability and lightness, and provides a variety of styles for a variety of riders, from the original bike tourist market to professional racers–with Coppi and Bartali among the riders that have pushed TA chainrings on the Tour de France.

A broader company now, that original inspiration is far from forgotten in Trucy, France, where it continues driving things at TA headquarters. Well, perhaps the aforementioned front-wheel-drive bicycle has been quite conscientiously forgotten, but the needs of the “cyclotouriste” – versatility and durability – have always remained squarely targeted. A print ad from around 1980 claims “1 million combinations, always in stock”, and judging from TA’s current product lineup one could assume the same holds true today.

The Pro 5 Vis crank offers crankarms in the following lengths: 150, 155, 160, 162.5, 165, 167.5, 170, 172.5, 175, 177.5, 180, and 185mm – ready to fit anyone from the tiniest Triple Crown jockey to the most massive NBA star. “Cyclo-Touriste” chainrings come in sizes from 26 to 52 teeth, all of which miraculously fit the same spider. All this for one of the company’s more modest road cranks. Outrageously impressive.

Cranks are not the whole story, though. Something needs to be fitted to the end of the crankarm and TA delivers. They make a traditional cage-type pedal for those who still prefer clips-and-straps, elegantly employing both ball and needle bearings.

Crankarms themselves must be bolted onto something, and here too TA fails to dissapoint. Their leading bottom bracket, the Axix, is available in lengths from 103 to 131mm with a steel axle – all of 220 grams complete – and 103 to 122mm with a flexier, but at 145 grams lighter, titanium version. Cup wrench included, naturally.

Writing of cups on bicycles, riders working up a thirst with all their pedaling will be delighted to know TA has a thriving waterbottle line. Using food grade plastic for bottles and aluminum or carbon fiber for cages, TA ensures its “calling card” product will continue representing you well anywhere you go. Should one want bottles for a club or event, design studio and photo lab services are available.

A group of headsets and headset components – all threadless at present – rounds out the company’s product line.

Together these TA products may not seem like much, yet they’ve more than adequately allowed the company to establish and maintain a reputation numerous larger names would love having.

Indeed, sometimes the company seems almost heartlessly promotional – under the heading of “Goodies,” the website offers – what else? – TA screensavers! In the logo-infested world of cycling, one might be forgiven for thinking the practice goes a bit far.

But since TA persists in manufacturing a version of a crankset first introduced over forty years ago, serving the small and unglamorous (and often tightfisted) bike tourist market, they are absolved of all charges of cynicism and exempt from the planned obsolescence as manufacturing technique list.

So let them have their screensavers, and red-anodized chainrings, and carbon-fiber chainwheel protectors – so long as they slowly keep refining the best examples in the world of a few very important things. That will satisfy time and again just fine.