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verktyg

I finally finished putting together this well traveled lady and took her out for my first ride on her this afternoon.

She started life at the Gitane factory in Machecoul, France as a 1974 or 75 Tour de France. She ended up in the land of OS probably via the UK.

That's where Wisey found her:

http://www.gitaneusa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=83

She traveled from Brisbane, AU to San Deigo, CA where she stayed with Stephan our Listmeister for a while.

Now shes up in the SF Bay Area with me. Very Happy

As she looked when Wisey rescued her in 2006:

Here's how she looked after Stephan dressed her up in all Campy:

And this is her latest makeover:

I accessorized her in mostly original or period correct components. Cool

The 1974-75 TdFs that came into the US had the following equipment:

Stronglight 93 cranks - 52/42
StronglightP3 Headset
Lyotard 460d alloy pedals
Simplex Criterium dérailleurs - a few had Huret Challenger derailleurs
Mafac Competition brakes, later bikes had 2nd generation Competition brakes
Pivo alloy bar and stem
Chrome plated steel tubing seatpost
A Torquemada plastic saddle or later an Ideale 2001 leather covered, foam padded plastic saddle. http://tinyurl.com/ykcbfg7
Campagnolo Nuovo Tipo high flange hubs
Mavic Modular E 27" alloy rims
27 x 3/4" Michelin Elan tires (these were an early attempt to match sewup performance with clincher tires)
14-24 or 14-26 Atom or Normandy 5 speed freewheel

I bought the frame from Stephan on eBay back in May. I've been gradually working on her since then. The frame came with a Campy headset, BB and shift levers. I decided to build her back up with mostly original French components.

The odd thing about this frame is that it has a British threaded fork and BB. It was probably built that way for the UK or OZ market because Gitane still used metric threads until the late 70s. The tubing is metric.

Here's the components that I used:

Stronglight 93 cranks 50/38
Shimano sealed bearing bottom bracket (there's a 118mm wide model that works well with Stronglight cranks)
Tange Levin CDS Headset (British threaded Stronglight P3 headsets are pretty rare)
Lyotard 460d alloy pedals
Huret Challenger rear derailleur (I have 3-4 Simplex Criterium bikes- ENOUGH!)
Huret Success/Duopar front derailleur ~1980
Huret Success/Duopar shift levers ~1980
Mafac 2nd generation Competition brakes
Cinelli 1a stem
Belleri bars
SR alloy seatpost - works like the old Simplex seatposts
Ideale 80 leather saddle
Campagnolo Nuovo Tipo high flange hubs
Rigida 700c 1320 alloy rims
700c x 25 Michelin Elan tires (they measure about 700x19c or 20c)
Maillard 13-28 narrow 6 speed freewheel - French thread

Frame ready to build:

Work in progress:

Finished product:

Partial profile shot:

Tange Levin CDS Headset. These look classic and have the correct 33mm stack height to replace the Stronglight P3. They're reasonably well made have dust seals, pretty inexpensive too. A few were available with metric threads:

Stronglight 93 cranks, Lyotard 460d pedals and Huret Success/DuoPar FD:

This is an NOS Huret Challenger derailleur. Some TdFs came with these as well as Interclubs from the same era. I used to look down my nose at these derailleurs because of the terrible Huret Alvit derailleur reputation. I put one on a very similar Motobecane several years ago and found that the shifting was most excellent! I'm running a 13-28 narrow 6 speed freewheel: Cool

Huret "honeycomb" rear dropouts used on this era Gitanes had tabs to work with both Campy style and Huret derailleurs plus Simplex derailleurs also fit:

Belleri bars and 70cm Cinelli 1a stem. The bike has a 57cm long top tube. I have a short neck plus I like to look through my glasses not over the top so I use short stems:

Mafac 2nd generation Competition front brakes. These Huret friction shift levers look a lot like Simplex Retro Friction levers:

Mafac rear brakes showing Michelin Elan tire:

Closeup of a Michelin Elan tire. They came out about 1974-75 and became an instant hit (for a short time). These tires had a casing made of a single layer nylon fishnet like material that resembled a ladies hairnet. They had very thick gum rubber side walls over the casing which made for a poor ride. We quit selling them because at 90 psi they would blow out sitting in our show room! Shocked

This pair of Elans came mounted on these wheels. The wheels were on another TdF that I bought earlier this year. Today was the first and last ride they will ever take with me. They're collectors items now! Laughing

The bike handles very well. It's very stable and would make a good peloton bike. The cold wind coming off the North Pacific kicked up as the sun was setting behind Mt. Tam this afternoon. The wind chill factor suddenly dropped the temperature from the mid 50s to the low 40s (°F) and I was fighting a head wind until I headed back. I was running 100+ inch gears on the way back. The bike handled all those things in stride.

I did a couple of small hills out of the saddle and that was good too. I imagine it should descend pretty well.

I have a 1974 Motobecane Grand Jubile with identical frame geometry and tubing plus just about identical components. It's a dream to ride so I was expecting this bike to ride the same. The ride isn't very smooth and I blame it on the Michelin Elans. Tomorrow I'll take it out again with some better tires which should improve the ride. I'll report back.

greyhundguy

Nice job Chas.
It's good to see Huret derailleurs on a Gitane for a change. The Success and Challengers work very well.

Jay

verktyg