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wtgrantham

I have a 1972 or 1973 TDF in restoration and it is an orange frame. Curious as to what color the tape, cable housings and bar tape would have been from the factory. I have seen green, red, and blue TDFs and all seemed to have white, did the orange come with white? Did Mafac 1/2 hoods actually come in Gum rubber or are faded white ones usually called gum rubber?

smilingroadrunner

Welcome to the Gitane USA forum!!

My White '71 Interclub purchased in late spring of '71 was " white on white ".

I believe it's probably a safe bet that the Orange paint jobs came with white cables and handlebar tape.

I'm refurbishing my white '72 TdeF for one of my sons. Working on my son's request for a "Denver Bronco's" color theme. Probably will be Orange cloth tape and Orange Fizik saddle with Blue brake cable and derailleur cable colors.

I'll likely be corrected-- Embarassed

--but I believe a lot of the early '70s frames (if not all of them) came with the White Mafac 1/2 brake hoods. I know that they're made in other colors ---but suspect white was the most common.

Again welcome to the site. How about posting some pictures of your restoration project???

I Like Steel !!!!!!
__________________
C.A.
Salina, Ks.

'70 TdeF
'71 Interclub
'72 Interclub
'72 TdeF
72-73 ??? Super Corsa (In the Wings)
'73 TdeF
'86 Performance
'87 Victoire

wtgrantham

Here are a couple of teasers

Here are many "before" pics and after frame paint pics

http://s758.photobucket.com/albums/xx224/wtgrantham/1972%20Gitane%20Tour%20De%20France/

scozim

I'm not a huge fan of repaints.... but, that bike is stunning. And, I'd have to say I think white would look real classy with that bright orange paint.

Scott

smilingroadrunner

Very Nice work in progress !

And I like the addition of the Stronglight Crankset and Simplex derailleurs.

Some would say the original patina is a credit to these vintage frames. It really becomes the owners decision in what they desire. Certainly in a restoration project, protection of the frame from further rust damage is a priority. The early 70's decal project that Greg S. helped bring to fruition was a great help for those wanting or needing to refinish these framesets.

The great series of "Before" images demonstrate the benefit that this frameset has receive with new finish and foil stickers. Did your frame painter remark on any difficulty in using Greg's (Cyclomondo) stickers in the refinish???

I face a little bit of a dilemma with my 72-73 Super Corsa framset. One of these days I hope to get started with it's restoration. It was one of those E-bay tradgedies in which the seller stripped the components --parting out for a bigger profit. I've slowly been acquiring period correct
Campy components for it's rebuild. BUT Mad

It has a wonderful custom paint job---good color match---good quality paint application and finsh---and probably was refinished fairly recently before the seller received the bike and parted it out.

I assume the custom painter just used his "Artistic License" and painted over a good amount of the chrome socks on the front forks and rear stays Confused

The previous owner may have commissioned the additions of the brazed on lower derailler cable guide, brake cable guides to the top tube and water bottle mounts to the down tube before the refinsh Mad

So my decision to repaint is easy---just not sure if my frame builder can undo the damage from the braze on additions or if their removal will damage - weaken the frame tubes- or bottom bracket.

Or do I just enjoy the frameset ride with it's "Brazed on Updates" and add Greg's stickers to an "ersatz" restoration ) Embarassed

Anyway nice start to your restoration. Just curious 'Is that a white Gitane in the background on the right side or your first image??'

Oh, and also---Nice Work Shop!!!! (and by the way --the shop in the above pictures is the E-bay seller---I only wish I had that much space in my corner of the basement.) Laughing

I Like Steel !!!!
______________________

C.A.
Salina Ks.

wtgrantham

My painter didn't say about the decals but I know he uses them regularly, so probably no big deal to him.

To build this one original I bought a green 1972 to harvest parts, then switched the shimano stuff and cranks out with it. Kept the frame with it's original patina and took it to live at my parents a few states away for a "vacation rider". I found a couple of Simplex derailleurs NOS on ebay for a decent price so just purchased them rather than clean up the old ones.

Thanks for the shop comments, I built it and love it, just wish I had more room for more bikes!!

The white one in the background is an all original (paint, decals and parts) PX-10 I restored several months ago

greyhundguy

verktyg

VERY nice bike! I'm jealous! Cool

Back in the early 70s you could get cloth bar tape on the performance model Gitanes in any color as long as it was white!

Words like never, always, only and so on are inappropriate when talking about European bike boom bikes.

Most performance model Gitanes in the US (those with sliver foil seat tube decals) came boxed with untaped bars and a plastic bag that contained:

2 rolls of white bar tape
2 white rubber handle bar plugs,
2 appropriate sized toe clips
2 toe clip straps usually in white but sometimes red, blue or black
and either a tube of Tubasti rim cement or
2 rolls of Velox double sided rim tape which we immediately threw away!

The 2 tubular tires were in a separate plastic bag.

These bikes came with white brake cable housing. Frequently the MAFAC brake cables were not installed. In that case, the cables, cable housings and all of the fittings were in a separate plastic bag.

The derailleurs cables had short sections of white cable housing that were already hooked up.

Occasionally some white TdFs came with a light powder blue/green cloth tape like on my 1969. The picture below is how it looked when I got it several years ago. The tape appeared to be original or that same color. It was a "barn bike' that had been in storage for almost 20 years.

Bike shops frequently used black or darker color cloth tape on showroom bikes because white tape got dirty quickly from handling and test rides. Dirty white tape on a brand new showroom bike looked bad! Confused

I remember a few early TdFs that came prewrapped with heavy white plastic bar tape like on my 1971 TdF pictured below.

This tape was much different than the thin embossed plastic tape used on Gitane Gran Sport models and most other entry level European bikes in those days. The thin stuff easily unraveled with use and became a mess.

Most Gitanes of that era came with white rubber bar plugs. They were very different than the aftermarket Velox plugs which we considered grotesquely oversize.

The OEM Gitane plugs were about the same diameter as the bars and had a pebbled finish on the ends. There is still a trace of that finish visible on this original plug.

The thing that was nice about soft rubber bar end plugs is you could lean the bike against a wall and it would stay put.

As Jay mentioned above, the MAFAC 1/2 hoods were almost always whitish.

wtgrantham

Very informative....thanks for the info.

I have a set of white Mafac 1/2 hoods ready to go. but the bar end plugs were shot, any suggestions of what to replace them with. Was also debating on cloth tape or cork (more comfy) tape but sounds like maybe cloth is the way to go. Lots of tapes come with end plugs but cloth does not.

greyhundguy

verktyg

As Jay suggested, Velox plugs...

They are still WAY oversize and still ugly but they have become the standard for classic bikes these days.

BTW, most folks with a pro bike back in the day wouldn't have been caught dead with Velox bar plugs! Confused

They were mostly found as replacements on entry level bikes!

Cateye made some smaller soft plastic plugs. They are very nice if you can find them.

I forgot about the hockey tape, It's a little less likely to get dirty as fast as herringbone bike tape.

We used to end up with 2-3 layers of tape on our bars before taking it all off and starting over.

I'd suggest that you might want to put on some original type white tape for starters (and pictures). When it gets dirty you can change it.

If you plan on riding the bike much use some tape that's comfortable for you. Personally I can't stand the dry feel of cork tape (or slipperiness Benotto cellophane tape either).

I've been using fi'z:ik Microtex bar tape myself. It's lightly padded, perforated and has the feel of a good leather steering wheel wrap. It comes it white that will stay clean and look good for a long time.

http://www.fizik.com/catalog_accessories.aspx?subid=Bar_tape_

My LBS owner/friend suggested that I apply it over old cloth tape. I started doing that and it makes for a slightly more comfortable feel.

greyhundguy

greyhundguy

sandranian · Site Admin

You can mention any bike on this site...just not discuss it in detail...esp. if it has to do with some aspect of Gitane (i.e. Look, Hinault, Cyfac, Peugeot, Motobecane, etc.).

The only brand which is STRICTLY VERBOTEN is MOSER!

verktyg

We're starting to sound like the folks in the Raleigh Team Pro Forum - again.. Wink

They had a weeks long discussion about the bar tape and color used by the pros. When they started talking about Hinault I butted in and linked them to pictures of the Badger riding with blanc, light bleu, dark bleu cloth tape plus Benotto bleu cellophane tape - all from the same 1-2 year period. Rolling Eyes

As I mentioned above, there were no standards for Bike Boom era bikes. All of the Foil Decal Gitanes that we unpacked and assembled in 1973-74 had white bar tape (cloth or plastic depending on model) and the rubber bar end plugs shown above.

The 1970 US Gitane catalog in the Catalog Section (which was used until mid 1974) shows these rubber plugs plus all of the bikes with taped bars have white tape except the Super Corsa. Since that was an older bike, I suspect it had been a Mel Pinto old stock display model since it has the silver foil head tube.

The 1973 and later French catalogs appear to have black bar tape.

The rubber compound used in those Gitane white rubber bar plugs was very poor quality and some of them looked deteriorated on brand new bikes.

The caps on those plugs frequently broke off when we had to pull them out to change bar tape. Since they were unavailable as replacements, we used these Milremo plastic bar plugs which worked very well. I still have some of these NOS in my stash.

There are some of these plugs currently available on eBay:

http://tinyurl.com/yjqr56f

In 1974 when Gitane changed from foil decals to the yellow or green plastic film decals they also switched to black bar tape and black plastic bar plugs. Some of the Mafac brake 1/2 hoods were white and some were black.

An all original 1972 U-08 with plastic bar tape that I recently overhauled for a friend. All of the drop bar models of this brand came with Velox bar plugs.

One advantage of the Velox plugs is the soft rubber makes it easy to lean the bike against a wall and not have it move.

I don't think the issue with the pros and the local racing set was weight. It was more of a sleek look. I've seen pro bikes with no plugs at all! The bar ends were just taped over with cloth tape.