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nedlands

Hi, I managed to pick this frame up a couple of years ago and have only recently gotten around to taking photographs of it. Does anyone have an idea which model it is? There are twin bottle mounts, number hanger and internal routing of the rear brake cable. It is pretty light and sounds like it is made of fairly decent tubing with Vitus frame ends. The seller didn't have a clue unfortunately.. anyway, onto the pics

Any suggestions welcomed

sandranian · Site Admin

Top-end frameset. Decals seem to be all over the place...not originals. I'll have to consult some catalogs....

scozim

Looks it could be a great riding bike. And, it's got a cool race number tab on the top tube as well.

sandranian · Site Admin

What type of dropouts? They look like Vitus....

nedlands

verktyg

My guess is that the frame is a 1983 or early 1984 Team Pro. The number tabs only came on Team Pro or Replica style frames.

Another possibility, Trek imported Gitanes for a while in the 1980s. They distributed them through a separate company, Cycles de France, Inc.

I think that Cycles de France/Trek may have sponsored or supported some teams riding Gitanes in the US. The US flag on the seat tube may be connected to Trek.

The decal on the fork is what was used on the 1983 and earlier Gitanes.

The fork could be a slight mismatch with the frame.

The pale yellow Gitane bubble decals were probably from early 1984. My Super Corsa came with those decals but I replaced them with 1984 style decals from Cyclomondo.

My 1984??? Super Corsa as it looked when I got it. There was no chrome on the right rear triangle.

Super Corsa with the later 1984 style decals.

All of my 1984 Gitanes including my Team Pro have these short point lugs. Your frame has long point lugs which would suggest that it was maybe a slightly earlier model.

Gitane team bikes used Mavic components for a year or two, thus the Mavic decals???

The frame is most likely built Columbus or Super Vitus 980 or 983 tubing.

My 1984 Team Pro frame is made of Columbus KL tubing which is much lighter than the standard SL tubing.

I bought my Super Corsa on eBay about 5 years ago to build up as a wet weather beater bike assembled from old parts that I had.

After riding it I soon changed my mind and upgraded the components a little bit. It's one of my all time favorite riding and handling bikes.

All of the top line Gitane frames from that era used the same geometry so they all handle about the same (Team Pro, Super Corsa, TdF, Criterium and Sprint).

http://www.gitaneusa.com/images/catalog/1984/Page_02-b.jpg

verktyg

I have a 1985/86 Gitane Professional. The serial number is E0359995 which is only 90 away from your frame E359905.

I also had a 58cm 1985/86 Professional frame that I traded away. That serial number was E039898.

They both have long point lugs like on your frame.

50cm 1985/86 Professional E0359995

58cm 1985/86 frame E039898

They're both made of Reynolds 531C light weight tubing.

I've seen a number of frames like these with serial numbers that started with the letter E. This may be the Trek connection as the US CPSC required traceable serial numbers and Cycles de France would have had to meet those requirements.

Mystery clear as mud eh?