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Indurain

I have bought this frame:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290233134577

Any info about this frame is appreciated

I guess i should be looking for a french treaded headset & bottom bracket

Vitus tubes?

Gtane

Welcome to the site Indurain.

By my reckoning you've purchased a super frame at a superb price. Well done indeed. Thanks for sharing.

My guess would place this frame as early '80s but we don't yet have a catalogue to place it firmly but it looks to be that era. I'm sure a member with greater model knowledge than I will be able to chime in. Do take a look at at the catalogue section even so:

http://www.gitaneusa.com/catalogues.asp

French BB would be correct too although headset I suspect would be standard fit but it just depends on the groupset you go for.

My recommendation for parts would be period and model correct parts through and through. I don't have the critical information regarding model correct parts. I hope a member can help me here before I dive in with ideas rather than specifics.

Tim

Indurain

Some pictures of the frame:

Weight fork: 870g
Frame: 2650g
Size: 56cm c-c top tube & seattube
French treads
Any information about the frame would be interesting.

sandranian · Site Admin

I see from the serial number stamps that your Gitane was, like most others, givin a serial number by "Pierre", who had just a few too many glasses of wine with his lunch that day.

Your bike was built between 1979 and 1982. We haven't been able to get catalogues for those years, so it is difficult to put an exact vintage on it. I do know that in at least 1983, Gitane abandoned French thread on most (if not all) of their bikes. So if yours is French threaded, it would put it before at least 1983. Also, that decal design was used on the pro teams as early as 1979...so I would figure that your bike was produced sometime after that.

Another clue as to the vintage is the seat binder bolt, which appears to be of the "older" style. The "MUSI" decal was, of course, not a factory decal and was added after production.

Great pics, by the way, and a fantastic bike. Please post pics when and if you build it up!

Indurain

Thanks sandranian & gtane....i will go crazy on this build Smile

That parts that so far is definitive is: Selle italia turbo (nos)
Wheels: Mavic piste 36h rims + campagnolo record hf hubs + dt revolution spokes + alunipples.

Any ideas what tubes it is made of? & shouldnt it be a sticker on the
seattube explaning that?

sandranian · Site Admin

Yes, there should be a sticker, but often the Reynolds decals were the first to go, because they were so brittle. It might be Reynolds 531 or Vitus. The fork crown appears to be exactly the same as my 1983 Kilo which uses Vitus tubing, but that is the crown...and doesn't say anything about the tubes. Perhaps some others have an opinion on the tubing, or a hint as to how to determine what this frame is made of?

verktyg

I'm not familiar with post 70s Gitane track bikes so I can't comment but throughout the 60s and 70s Gitane produced a number of models of track bikes with different names and components depending on the market. :

Professional Pista
Professional Super Pista
Super Pista

Reynolds 531 tubing, Campagnolo components, Prunat or Bocama long point lugs.

Mexico

3 main tubes Reynolds 531 tubing, forks and stays ???. The forks were generally chromed and sometimes part of the rear triangle too. Stronglight 93 alloy cranks with alloy bars and stem.

Track Standard
Standard
School (may have had 24" wheels)

Light weight tubing, maybe Durifort, Vitus 888 or gas pipe. Steel bars and cranks with standard quality Normandy alloy nutted hubs and alloy sewup rims.

They also sold several different small sized track bikes for young riders.

The Track Standard is the most common model frame/bike that shows up on eBay. These were probably the most economical (cheapest) track bikes sold in the US. The other day a friend of mine told me that he bought his back in the 70s for $69.00 USD.

We always kept one or two of these around our shop. We'd take them for a spin around the block when we were bored. I seem to remember we sold them for somewhere between $79.00 and $150.00 USD.

The folks selling these have over inflated views of what these bikes or frames are worth. Either that or fixie faddists are bigger fools than I realized plus the sellers list everything as being from the 60s. For example:

http://cgi.ebay.com/60s-Gitane-undrilled-Lugged-track-frame-fixed-gear_W0QQitemZ180251934692QQihZ008QQcategoryZ159089QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

A fancy paint job does not make a 1970s gas pipe special into a $500 frame! Rolling Eyes

The seller seems rather arrogant on top of it all! Shocked

Here's another example currently on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/GITANE-1976-Vintage-TRACK-Bike-Frame-Set-56cm_W0QQitemZ330244606539QQihZ014QQcategoryZ98084QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

This is probably a Track Standard gas pipe model from 1974 to 76. Someone added an English Reynolds 531 sticker - if it were genuine it should be in French - plus waterslide World Champion stripes decals to the seat tube. Gitanes of that era used plastic stickers not waterslide decals and they never had World Champion stripes. Also a Reynolds 531 frame from this era would have the sticker on the downtube and have Campy dropouts.

End of RANT Twisted Evil

Chas.

Indurain

great chas Smile

...but couldnt the weight be a clue to what tube the frame is made of ?

Fork weight: 1.91lbs or 0.870kg (thats the same weight of my scott cr1frame Shocked

)

Frame weight: 5.82lbs or 2.650kg.

I don`t think reynolds 531 is that heavy?, so i`m leaning towards the track standard with vitus tubes.

i have sent a email to reynolds, see what they say.....

vanhelmont

My 63 cm Super Corsa frame, which is 531, weighs 2.20 kg, so yes, your frame is too heavy to be 531.

If you look down the seat tube, you should be able to see the seam if it's a low grade tubing. I can see a seam in my head tube, which is not 531, but not in the seat tube.

verktyg

Good point about the weight but....

There's a misconception about track frames being light weight. Track frames made for some types of racing events can be very light weight but those frames built for sprinters with ham sized thighs are usually made of heavy gage tubing for stiffness e.g. Columbus PS track tubes or heavy gage Reynolds 531 tubing.

Same thing goes for road bikes. Up until the 1980s many pro team bikes had frames that were fairly heavy. The reasons being 1. to avoid tubing failure and 2. to survive peloton crashes.

I don't know if you will get a response from Reynolds but it's worth a try.

Another thing to do is check the seatpost size. Determine if the frame has metric or inch size tubing. Metric top tubes are slightly over 26mm (the paint adds a little to the diameter). The down tubes are slightly larger than 28mm diameter. Inch size tubing would be 1" and 1 1/8" diameter plus a little for paint thickness. Measure the tubes in several different spots to get an average.

If the tubing is metric, Reynolds tubing would take a 26.4mm or 26.6mm seat post. Lesser grades of tubing would use a smaller diameter seatpost because of the wall thickness of the tubing. If the seat post is 25mm then the frame is probably made of standard carbon steel tubes. 25.8mm could be a better grade of tubes but not Reynolds. Vitus 888 tubing would most likely take a 26.4mm seatpost.

BTW, seat tubes on older frames are rarely round either from having been over tightened to clamp an undersized seatpost or out of round from being overheated during brazing.

Good luck,

Chas.

Indurain · Last edited by Indurain on Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:43 am; edited 2 times in total

So far i have bought a campagnolo pista headset, bottom bracket is on the way.

Mounted wheesl to see the geometry, it does look pretty cool with a disc Twisted Evil

.....the primary wheels will be Mavic piste rims with campagnolo record hf hubs.

Gtane

Keep going, it's looking good. Thanks for posting the image.

Tim

Indurain

Just noticed i need a 22mm quillstem to fit inside the fork, why did the french decided to go there own way with 22mm Confused

I have read some horror stories about Pivo stems.....would this stem be ok?

verktyg

Indurain,

Yours is one of the later Pivo stems. While it appears to be made of cast aluminum rather than forged, it's probably going to be OK. Most of the bad French cast aluminum stems were produced at the height of the US Bike Boom ~ 1972-73.

I recommend drilling a small hole at the the top of the split cut into the quill for the the expander plug. It will help prevent cracks from forming at that point - see picture below.

Note, the rough surface and indentations throughout this stem. Most of the flaws are due to poor casting quality rather than physical damage. Also see how the bottom of the quill is bulged. This stem measured about 21.7mm above the bulge. It was out of round and WAY undersized! This should have been thrown back into the pot and remelted! Rolling Eyes

This is a closeup of the bulge:

To answer your question about 22mm diameter stems, the US, Burma (Myanmar) and one small African nation are the only countries still using the Imperial (inch) standard.

Bicycle technology is a throwback to the first half of the last century. For some ODD reason, the Japanese adopted the British standards. I'd read that it was done because when Japan invaded SE Asia during WWII many of the areas had been British colonies and had lots of British made bike in use. Part of the reason for the speed of the Japanese conquest of Malaysia was because their troops traveled on local bikes that they stole!

Any way I guess the ISO standard for BB and headset threads was set to inch size threads because of the large number of bikes in use with those threads. Most of the rest of the threads on a modern bike are metric.

Chas.

Indurain

Update....

Crank: TA Specialites
BB: Sugino 75 Superlap
Pedals: The one and only track pedal: dura ace pd-7700
Seatpost: Don`t ask
Stem: 3ttt

The wheels are not completed, as soon i have the hubs, i will build up a proper trackwheelset & trackhandlebar will be fitted.. This frame is SUPER STIFF Exclamation

, you can feel every little bump on the road, but that was expected with this kind of THICK pipes.