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chewy267

Hello all. I'm new to the Gitane family. A couple of years ago I was given 80% of a racer. It sat out in the back yard for 2 years before I was inspired by a friend who had lost a heap of weight by riding to work, to start riding again. So I got the parts needed to make it rideable. Seat, seat post, chain front and rear derailier, and re greased all the bits. I didn't even know what a Gitane was! It rides better than my old Peugeot.

After looking through this forum I'm once again inspired to restore this bike. From what I've seen you guys have done fantastic jobs.

Going by the catalogue I think it might be an 80 or 81 model Sprint. Is there anyone that can confirm?

According to the catalogue it has a Reynolds 531 frame, how do I confirm this? However this particular sticker throws me off. Has anyone seen it before, or if you have a pic of what it's suppoed to look like, could you please post.

Wheel hubs are getting a bit tired as there is a small amount of pitting on them.

The cranks are 170mm

At the moment I'm trying to sorce the same decals so I can powder coat. Any help on any of the above will be greatly appreciated.

sandranian · Site Admin

Appears to be a circa 1981 "Sprint". Very nice bicycle. I would recommend against powder coating it, though. Not a very flattering finish for a bicycle...specially one with lugs.

That frameset is not Reynolds 531...it is built from Vitus 888 tubing. Here is some more information about Vitus, including a link to a brief history of the company:
http://www.classicrendezvous.com/France/Ateliers-dela_%20Rive.htm

I am trying to find a good picture of that decal, which appears to be different than the standard later version.

verktyg

Greetings and welcome to the Forum.

As the resident retrogrouch my first intentionally offensive comment is: If you want a brand new looking bike , then go buy a brand new (expletives deleted) bike! Shocked

That said, put your bike in historical perspective:

1. It's almost 30 years old.

2. There was never a large quantity of that model made, even fewer imported into the US.

3. Of those, only a few have survived to this day... most have become KIAs or Hundais or Hondas by now.

The only time I would recommend doing an extensive restoration is on a particularly rare or valuable bike that has had a lot of damage to the paint and or chrome.

A decent paint job can run from $300 to $600+, replating chrome another $100-$400 and then there's the possible additional cost for decals of $40-$100+ if they're not included in the cost of the repainting.

The next thing, old worn looking components look bad on a spiffy new paint job.

Your bike can look great with 2-4 hours of elbow grease. Here's several examples:

This was a 1969 Gitane Tour de France that had been stored in a shed since the mid 70s:

Before:

After 3-4 hours of cleaning and polishing (work in progress):

Here's another example, this is the way Wisey another Forum member found the bike in OZ:

How Listmeister Stephan put it together:

It's latest incarnation, I'm re-equipping the bike with somewhat original components (work on progress):

Some mild household cleaner like 409, rubbing alcohol and auto polish can do a nice job on the frame. Use caution with some of the orange based degreasers (rubbing alcohol too) as they can damage the paint. Same thing with the polish, the paint on bikes is usually pretty thin.

The metal parts should clean up nicely with some degreaser and then use 3x or 4x steel wool to remove rust and corrosion. Semichrome brand metal polish works great on the rims and hubs, coarser steel wool on the spokes.

Think PATINA Cool

Patina is a film on the surface certain metals; a sheen on wooden furniture produced by age, wear, and polishing; or any such acquired change of a surface through age and exposure (on bikes it's signs of use and wear - from years of enjoyable riding).

Your bike should look great when cleaned up.

Enjoy... Very Happy

sandranian · Site Admin

Ditto what Charles said. Here is a picture of a bike with a similar Vitus decal. Not exact, but pretty darned close:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Motobecane-Grand-Touring-Vitus-888-Perfect-Sachs-Huret_W0QQitemZ380152844463QQcmdZViewItemQQptZRoad_Bikes?hash=item5882e010af

Don't take this link as an indication of value. I have no idea what the Motobecane is worth!

verktyg

Originally Ateliers de la Rive the French makers of Durifort, Vitus and Super Vitus tubing made some light straight gage tubes for the 3 main frame tubes.

They called this Rubis 888 and it was made from the same material as Durifort but had a wall thickness of 0.8mm throughout. Durifort main tubes were 1.1mm thick in the butted ends and 0.7mm thick in the middle.

I suspect that Ateliers de la Rive made up tubing with Durifort forks and stays plus Rubis 888 main tubes and called it Vitus 888.

Durifort tubing was made from low alloy steel. During the late 70s and throughout the 1980s Ateliers de la Rive was continuously changing and upgrading the steel alloys that they used in their tubing so Vitus 888 is probably pretty good stuff.

As a comparison, before the mid 70s some bike makers used straight gage Reynolds 531 main tubes. These usually had 1.0mm or 0.9mm wall thicknesses. Additionally. many production frames made with Reynolds butted main tubes had wall thicknesses of 1.0mm at the butted ends and 0.7mm in the center. So 0.8mm wall thickness will be the same or lighter weight than butted tubing with 1.0mm wall thickness in the butts and provide a smoother ride too! Shocked

scozim

I agree with the others. Get the bike in good running order and see how you like it. My Sprint got 50% of my training miles this year and will become my time trial bike this spring. It's a great, responsive ride.

chewy267

Thank you all for your wise words and info.
Charles you made me laugh, because that's what I would have said. I like the way this old bike rides, besides I don't think I'm worthy of getting a new wiz bang bike till I loose another 15kg. However there is a little rust that's why I thought I'd redo the whole thing.
I had a quote for powder coat $90-$140
Paint $120 (I have a friend that's a panel beater)
All the polishing of Aluminium bits I can do. They came up like chrome on my Harley!
I just want to make sure I can get very similar Decals before I take this step.

sandranian · Site Admin

I don't know of a source for that style of Gitane decal. That doesn't appear to be among the "favorites" for people restoring bicycles, so that may be one you are forced to have custom made (if you want the exact decals).

The nice thing about Gitane in that respect is that they used stickers on top of any finish. So as long as you have good pictures of the original stickers, they can always wait.

Beware of powercoating and rust issues. That finish tends to only cosmetically cover the rust, which has been known to spread beneath it.