gitaneusa.com :: View topic - Gitane Restoration Project

MRussell

Well, all is disassembled, cleaned, and most is reassembled. I still need to replace my cables. I've purchased new bars/stem.

I was wondering if anyone could recommend a decent but affordable pair of clincher tires for this Gran Tourisme. I've been reading up on the great clincher/sewup debate. It seems sewups are out of my league at the moment.

The tires currently on the bike don't seem to be in bad shape but considering they haven't been ridden in at least 20 years, I thought getting replacements might be a good idea anyway.

Current rear tire is a "Specialized Touring" 95 PSI. The tube does not hold air.

Current front tire is a Japanese made "National Tire Co. Ltd." tire "To Fit K-2 Rim" 100 PSI. The tube holds air.

Wheels are 27 1/4.

I plan on riding the bike casually. Maybe regularly to work. I live in El Paso, TX and have had a hell of a time with flats on my mountain bike. These days, I expect to get a flat pretty much every time I ride. I know the bike stores around here market a type of tube gel that, when injected into the tubes, is supposed to prevent flats. Practical on a road bike?

As always, any information would be greatly appreciated.

verktyg

Not what you might think.... See explanation below.

I Feel Your Pain, I lived in the Sun Valley area of El Paso for several months in 1972.

GOATHEADS! The bane of Southwest cyclists!

Up in Albuquerque, NM I once saw someone driving around on a very bald car tire get a flat from running over a bunch of goatheads!

BTW, The top picture is a shopping bag full of goat head plants or vines that I picked along the side of a 1 mile stretch of a favorite bike trail in the S.F. Bay Area last year.

In the late fall of 2008 I discovered a few plants growing where the trail crosses a large street that's close the an interstate highway.

I picked a few plants then and intended to go back and do a sweep of the trail but never got around to it. By last summer the plants had spread out along several miles of the trail. You snooze you loose!

Here's a suggestion for tires - Notmantel... developed by the German army in WWI:

A more readily available solution might be the Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires. Unfortunately they don't make them in 27" x 1 1/4" size, only 26" and 700c.

http://www.schwalbetires.com/marathon_plus

The newer ISO-ETRTO tire measurement standards are based on the bead seat diameter of the rim and the cross sectional diameter of the tire.

A 27" x 1 1/4" is a 32-630 size tire in the ETRTO system with a 32mm cross section and a 630mm bead seat diameter (a 700x32c is a 32-622).

Unfortunately, the variety and availability of good quality 27" tires is getting very slim. If you are switching rims from tubulars to clinchers, then by all means go to 700c size tires.

Here's a Schwalbe 27x1 1/4" tire with "puncture protection". I'm not sure if it is the same kind of protection as the Marathon Plus tires offer.

This vendor offers them in white side wall:

http://tinyurl.com/24n7j76

Schwalbe lists them in gum sidewall too:

http://www.schwalbetires.com/node/1346

My favorite currently available touring tires are the Panaracer (Panasonic) Pasela Tour Guard tires... but not for goathead hell!

These tires like most others billed as "puncture resistant" have a Kevlar belt under the tread. This works well against glass shards, flint and and other small, sharp road debris... but not goatheads.

In 10 years of living in New Mexico, I had very few flats even riding sewups!

The secret... several of them. We rode on larger diameter tires with 28mm or 32mm cross sections, we kept the tire pressure under 95 psi and we used "sticker flickers".

These were poopooed by many, especially the raceur set who enjoyed riding skinny tires pumped up to 120+ psi. They also must have enjoyed changing tires by the side of the road.

One of our customers made these for us. He was a machinist and built jigs to bend the wires. He used very soft iron wire and the most flexible Tygon plastic surgical tubing available.

They were attached to the brake mounting bolts.

The idea with sticker flickers was that many times a goathead doesn't penetrate the tire on the first revolution. The sticker flickers ride just above the tread of the tire and "flick" the goat heads off of the tread before they can penetrate.

It worked! Once I remember running over a bunch of goatheads. I looked down at my front tire, an expensive sewup and watch 3-4 goatheads get flicked off!

One last thing, we avoided riding in the gutters to too close to the curb. Goatheads and other road debris usually got swept away from the area of the road that the right tires of cars drove over.

MRussell

... So, after months of sporadic work, some expert and thoughtful advice from this forum, a little reading, and a LBS who generously lent me tools, I've come to the home stretch ( think).

I've stripped all the components and cleaned them, took apart the bottom bracket and re-greased the bearings, replaced the headset and stem, and purchased some puncture protection tires (I live in El Paso - luckily my uncle already had a sticker flicker installed on the front end) and replaced the tubes.

All that's left? Re-connect the chain and get some new cables/housing for the brakes and the gears.

New pictures (and old ones) here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kaity.ross/Gitane#

Following the much-appreciated advice from Chas, I've also replaced the much-derided Gran Tourismo derailleur with a first generation Rally that I found on E-Bay.

...But here's where I might have outsmarted myself. I couldn't afford a complete Rally derailleur in good condition so I jumped at the opportunity to purchase a used one without pulleys or pulley bolts. Why? It was relatively inexpensive, and I figured I could use the pulleys and bolts from my Gran Toursimo. Pretty smart....

The problem: I don't know whether the pulleys for the Grande Toursimo were fatter than the Rally pulleys but the pulley cage for the Rally seems to be fatter than the GT pulley cage. The result: The GT pulley bolts are too short. While securing both sides of the pulley cage, they don't reach all the way to the outside of the cage. There's a gap (or hole) of a couple millimeters.

The question: What's the best solution here? Can I get longer pulley bolts specific to the rally (I've tried looking for them but haven't found them yet). Or, to fix the problem, do I need to seek out some Rally-specific pulleys as well as bolts? Do I need to fix the problem at all? I mean, the cage seems secure enough. Can I ride it?

As always, any thoughts are appreciated. I'm really grateful for everyone's input over the last couple of months.

Oh, one more question: So, I'd like to install the cables myself after having the LBS measure and cut what I need and purchasing some white housing. This should be simple enough, right? Any pointers?

vanhelmont

I once got a suntour cyclone rd that was missing an oddball nut that holds the cable. I got a replacement from a different suntour derailleur from my favorite bike shop's junk box.

If it's just a too-thick pulley, and you aren't too picky, I think there are generic replacement pulleys. Velo orange sells one that comes with different spacers.

Dave

verktyg

Looks great.

More modern derailleurs made for 7, 8, 9 & 10 speed cogs are not as wide as the originals that came on your derailleur. They were made for narrower chains.

Get some longer bolts. Ideally you need 7 threads of engagement for maximum threaded strength. On derailleur cages, you're lucky to get 3 threads of full engagement.

If you strip out one of these holes by using a bolt that's too short, you'll be caught in a compromising position with a pooch if you get my drift - especially so while riding!

I measured the bolts and pulleys on my Campy Rally derailleur. Classic Campy pulleys were 10.3mm wide across the metal end caps.

The "5mm" bolts for the Rally derailleurs are ~18mm long measured from under the bolt head to the end of the bolt. These are 2-3mm longer than the bolts used on most standard Campy derailleurs. The bolts are slightly under 5mm in diameter.

Here's a source for knock off Campy replacement pulleys for $22a pair:

http://www.renehersebicycles.com/NPP%20Vintage%20Specialties.htm

Scroll down to:

"Dérailleurs, Shifters, and related parts"

Shimano pulleys are about 9.95 wide and use the same diameter bolts as Campy. Most Suntour pulleys used smaller diameter bolts so they don't fit Campy derailleurs.

If you can't find the correct size derailleur pulley bolts , you could use some M5x.8 button head cap screws that you should be able to get from a bolt supply company. If they are too long grind a little off the ends.

LeicaLad

That is one FINE bike!

And it is, indeed, rare. I've only seen one other, and that was years ago. I think the angles are a bit more relaxed than the TdF or SC, yet it is still a responsive ride. You should really enjoy it.

I'll defer to Chas on practically everything, but will encourage you to consider having new wheels built. I'm a fan of really old frames on really new wheels. Safe and secure.

I'd also suggest looking for a nice Suntour Cyclone GT rear derailleur. Meant for wider cog range and one of the best touring derailleurs ever. You can probably find one very cheap. I have a spare, but am saving it for my next touring frame!

Keep posting your progress!!!

MRussell

Well, it's been been about three years since I last posted about my 1972/73 Gran Tourisme restoration project. I'm still incredibly grateful for all the help the nice people on this forum gave me. I'm also very pleased to say the bike is still working great, even with the abuse it suffers here in El Paso, TX. It's one of the things I'm most proud of... second maybe to a little girl who happens to love the bike almost as much as me.

Of course, the work is never done. I need a new saddle. Also, I'm looking for some era-appropriate toestraps. Anyone have any good suggests about brands/where to find some?

Thanks again to everyone on here. I hope to visit more often in the future.

Mike

vanhelmont

Looks good! NOS toestraps don't go for too much on ebay. Either Lapize or Christophe, both of which are named for early French cycle racers, would be appropriate. I think they were made by the same company. A current source for old style straps is Velo Orange. I see they now only have their high-end strap available. They also have their own brand of leather saddles which go for a little less than Brooks.

Dave