gitaneusa.com Forum Index » Vintage Gitane » Rebuilding Wheels 1960s    View previous topic :: View next topic  Rebuilding Wheels 1960s   Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 11:38 pm Kinst VonSterga Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 153 Location: Hillsboro, Oregon USA I have a number of early to mid '60s French bicycles that I plan to rebuild, starting with the wheel sets ... many of which used mavic tubulars. For the Gitanes, what would a period-correct equivalent clincher be? as I'm not a great fan of glue-ons Cheers Re: Rebuilding Wheels 1960s   Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 4:22 pm verktyg Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2814 Location: SF Bay Area Kinst VonSterga wrote: I have a number of early to mid '60s French bicycles that I plan to rebuild, starting with the wheel sets ... many of which used mavic tubulars. For the Gitanes, what would a period-correct equivalent clincher be? as I'm not a great fan of glue-ons Cheers During the 1960s and early 70s alloy clincher (wired on) rims were not that common in France and Italy. Chrome plated steel clincher (wired on) rims were de rigueur up until the mid 70s. The standard size would have been 700c x 23mm+ width (or 650b for many non sporting bikes). Most performance model bikes would have been equipped with tubular (sewup) wheels. Those equipped with alloy clinchers most likely would have been size 700c rather than the British standard 27". The British had a long tradition of 27" alloy rims (Dunlap and other makes). French makers Mavic, Super Champion, Rigida, AVA, Pivo probably made alloy clinchers back in the 60s. Italian companies Fiame and Nisi made them too all with the Swiss maker Weinmann. Finding some period correct alloy clinchers from that era for less than a Japanese collector's ransom is going to be slim. One problem with early clinchers was that many of them were welded together at the seam. Hitting a bump anywhere near the weld could cause it to fail (happened to me several times with Weinmann rims). One other thing, alloy rims from that era were 23 to 25+ mm wide and were designed to fit bikes that used steel rims. Also they had tapered sides like the steel rims. The narrow 20mm wide rims with hooks" inside for high pressure clinchers didn't come out until the mid 70s (Mavic Module E and Michelin Elan tires). They had straight sides and were designed to interchange with sewup wheels. Click on picture to see the whole shot. BTW, I recommend against the 20mm Rigida AL1320 rims. These were copies of the Mavic Module E and Super Champion rims. The side walls on the Rigida rims are so thin that they wear through! Best chance is to find some 1960s looking rims are the Weinmann 210 or 256 Sport rims. They are going to be 23.5mm wide. Weinmann Alesa 210 or 256 Sport rims. Fiame #7 clincher rim with the old style decal. A BIG note of advise, most of the rims prior to the mid 70s were not designed for use with high pressure tires. The high pressure tires that came out after 1975 require a hook inside to grip the bead on the tires (see Mavic Module E cross section above). High pressure tires will blow off of these older rims at pressures over 80 PSI. If I were building a bike to ride, I'd cheat a little and use Mavic MA2 rims that came out in the early 80s. You could peel off the decals and they would look period correct. They're 20mm wide with straight sides so they'll fit bikes made for sewups. They have hooks for high pressure tires. Up to 700x32c tires will fit these rims. They're my favorite rims for classic high pressure tires. Another good choice would be Super Champion Model 58 rims. They can take 700x32c and larger tires but not at high pressures. Last edited by verktyg on Sat Jan 14, 2012 8:16 pm; edited 1 time in total _________________ Chas. SF Bay Area, CA USA ============== 1984 Criterium 1969 TdF 1971 TdF 1974 TdF 1984 TdF x 2 Bikes 1970 SC 1971 SC 1972 SC 1984 SC 1984 Team Pro 1985 Professional 1990s Team Replica   Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 6:00 pm Kinst VonSterga Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 153 Location: Hillsboro, Oregon USA Okay Chas ... you seriously need to write a book! Suggested titles anyone? I'll definitely go with your advise and forgo any attempt at purchasing/using any clinchers from the 1960s. Unfortunately for me, tubulars have scared/scarred me for life after a very unpleasant experience with them a couple of decades back. I have a bunch of clinchers from the mid-late 70s that are just collecting dust in my garage, so it looks like it's time to polish them up and pair them with an equal number of Campy hubs that are hibernating in my parts bin. I have a couple of MA2 wheelsets, but their home on some PX# & PY# Peugeots of mine. Mid 60s Mavic Rim Decal   Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 8:01 pm verktyg Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2814 Location: SF Bay Area I looked through my wheel and rim collection and found several mid 60s Mavic rim decals. These are sewups off of a 1967 PX-10. _________________ Chas. SF Bay Area, CA USA ============== 1984 Criterium 1969 TdF 1971 TdF 1974 TdF 1984 TdF x 2 Bikes 1970 SC 1971 SC 1972 SC 1984 SC 1984 Team Pro 1985 Professional 1990s Team Replica   Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 9:02 am scozim Joined: 26 Sep 2008 Posts: 629 Location: Ellensburg, WA Kinst VonSterga wrote: Okay Chas ... you seriously need to write a book! Suggested titles anyone? I'll definitely go with your advise and forgo any attempt at purchasing/using any clinchers from the 1960s. Unfortunately for me, tubulars have scared/scarred me for life after a very unpleasant experience with them a couple of decades back. I have a bunch of clinchers from the mid-late 70s that are just collecting dust in my garage, so it looks like it's time to polish them up and pair them with an equal number of Campy hubs that are hibernating in my parts bin. I have a couple of MA2 wheelsets, but their home on some PX# & PY# Peugeots of mine. Yikes - are those all Module E's in that first photo? Those are my winter wheels on my '84 Sprint. Too bad you'll not give the tubulars a try again. That's all I ride in the spring, summer and fall after resisting them for most of my life. I was given 14 mostly Mavic GEL330 tubular rims a couple years back so I decided to enter that world for the first time. It's been a lot of fun. I have one set that I run Continental Sprinters on and the remainder run the Yellow Jersey Servizio Course 3 for $50 tubulars. While they're not a high end tire they do the job well for most of the riding I do - and at $18 each after shipping I couldn't pass up the deal. When I race my Gitane TdF in a hill climb I use a lightweight Bontrager sew-up on the rear with the Continental Sprinter on a Mavic GL 280 rim. It's been a good, successful combination. I just rebuilt an early 70's French bike and had the original Normandy hubs laced to some 70's Super Champion Competition tubular wheels. Saved quite a bit of weight and is probably overkill on a low-end bike but it looks cool and rides nice. _________________ 1984 Gitane Sprint 1984 Gitane Tour de France mid-1970's Gitane Olympic Plus many more http://eburgcycling.blogspot.com   Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 10:31 am Kinst VonSterga Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 153 Location: Hillsboro, Oregon USA scozim wrote: Yikes - are those all Module E's in that first photo? Those are my winter wheels on my '84 Sprint. I have a 1 module E and the rest are E2s. Back in the year, I had professionally mounted tubulars of highest quality that rolled off the rim. Minimal use of brakes, perfectly applied glue, no cheap stuff or application used. Nasty spill on the descent with the only explanation of the tire/glue failure being a one-off anomaly. The rest is endless speculation on the cause and true culprit, but the only thing I remember being certain was the very nasty crash onto Tarmac. Tubular tire roll-offs   Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 7:39 pm verktyg Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2814 Location: SF Bay Area I've only seen 2 tubular tires roll-off, both during the same race, actually after the race. It was the 1975 or 76 Sandia Crest Race in Albuquerque, NM... 25 miles, starting at 7,500' (2,286 meters) and finishing at 10,600' (3,230 meters). The best part of the race was the ride back down the hill afterward. Most of the climbing was in the last 9 miles. Combing back down was full of U turns and S curves. We all rode that section fast! Both roll-offs happened within a few minutes of each other in sharp, steep U turns. The riders were behind me and I heard their brakes squealing then the sound of them skidding off the road and go flying off into the woods. Fortunately neither rider was seriously hurt. Those riders had one thing in common... They were both using Clement red rim cement. The racing set were the most slavish, fasionistas. They had to have the latest fad (still the same today). Clement red was the only rim cement they'd use. We called it Rude-a Gutta as in rude! Rim cement for use on the road needs to be able to withstand heat of braking, especially on long descents in warm weather. It also should remain tacky enough to change a tire on the road and still safely make it back home. Clement red cement had 2 bad features. When it got hot it would turn soft and ooze out between the tire and rim and onto the sides of the rims. The bond to the rim would also weaken. Secondly, after Clement red cement was on a rim for a long time it would harden. When you removed a tire there was very little adhesion left so you couldn't safely replace the tire on the road. My guess is that the tires you had problems with may have been glued on with Clement red. That's what the "experts" used. Tubasti was a popular rim cement made in France. It was sort of white and dried translucent. It didn't loosen when heated and remained somewhat tacky for a reasonable period of time. It needed to be reapplied periodically and definately after changing tires. My favorite was Pastali another French made product. You could safely change tires and keep riding. Last summer I pulled a couple of ccyclocross tires off of some wheels that I'd used during the late 70s and early 80s. The last time these tires were glued on with Pastali was in 1978. The rim cement was still tacky enough to put new tires on and have them hold for some light riding. When I started riding sewups again back in 2007 I tried about half dozen rim cements. I didn't find any of them satisfactory. That's when I started using Tufo Extreme Rim Tape. It's easy to apply and I carry a spare tape in case I ever need to change a tire. I'd recommend trying it before giving up on sewups. You need to clean off any old rim cement first. The other thing that I recommend for use with the tape is Tufo Tire Sealant. It works great for small cuts and punctures in sewups. _________________ Chas. SF Bay Area, CA USA ============== 1984 Criterium 1969 TdF 1971 TdF 1974 TdF 1984 TdF x 2 Bikes 1970 SC 1971 SC 1972 SC 1984 SC 1984 Team Pro 1985 Professional 1990s Team Replica   Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 9:25 pm scozim Joined: 26 Sep 2008 Posts: 629 Location: Ellensburg, WA I've used both the Tubasti (most recently) and Pastali and definitely like the latter much better. The Tubasti was too "stringy" when installing it. I was riding this summer in an area where it was 96 degrees. When I got back to the car I noticed small amounts of glue that seemed to have softened and seeped out of the edge of the tire. _________________ 1984 Gitane Sprint 1984 Gitane Tour de France mid-1970's Gitane Olympic Plus many more http://eburgcycling.blogspot.com   Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 1:41 am verktyg Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2814 Location: SF Bay Area scozim wrote: I've used both the Tubasti (most recently) and Pastali and definitely like the latter much better. The Tubasti was too "stringy" when installing it. I had a few tubes of Pastali left over that I bought back in the 1980s. I tried some of it and it still seemed OK. A while back I bought some of the new Pastali. It seemed just like the old Tubasti. scozim wrote: I was riding this summer in an area where it was 96 degrees. When I got back to the car I noticed small amounts of glue that seemed to have softened and seeped out of the edge of the tire. Some of the rim cements on the market are meant for track use. They dry and don't remain tacky so you have to reapply them when you change tires. At that temperature (96°) all of the rim cement that remains tacky is probably going to soften a little and ooze out especially during long descents. As I mentioned, the Orange Tufo Extreme tape has been working really well for me. I don't think that I'll ever go back to rim cement. A number of months ago I bought an old PX-10. The sewup tires wouldn't hold air for more than a few minutes. I put some of Tufo Tire Sealant in and they are still holding air. _________________ Chas. SF Bay Area, CA USA ============== 1984 Criterium 1969 TdF 1971 TdF 1974 TdF 1984 TdF x 2 Bikes 1970 SC 1971 SC 1972 SC 1984 SC 1984 Team Pro 1985 Professional 1990s Team Replica sticky   Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 8:26 am Frenchbuilt Joined: 18 Apr 2007 Posts: 443 We all rode on sew up tires in the early '70's and fixed all of our tires with what you got in the kit (Velox I believe) Since so few people knew about these tires we just did what we thought was OK. It just seemed like a good idea to put on more glue after each tire (flat) change. I have repaired all types of sew ups and often glued bits of old tires into the cut up casing using all sorts of glues (Latex I think). A sew up was dead only when cut in half! For us tires were so expensive (especially the silk ones) that we made them last a long time even when lumpy. (we were only 15 at the time and no money) But we also found the Tubasti pretty sticky and this is what we used to glue on tires along with some Clemente stuff in orange tube?? When I came to France to live in 1983, I was amazed to see sew up tires being sold (along with just about everything else for bikes) in normal super market type stores for around 3 or 4 dollars a piece! We had only one or two roll-offs and only after coming down from Skyline Blvd. (Bay Area) on hot days with lots of braking. Took ten minutes to find friend who was in gully about 20 meters down and a bit dazed. But really, the tires stay on very well which always surprised us but then I remember that we made sure that everything was always very sticky. Now I use tape as recommended by you!! Dan Re: sticky   Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 11:32 am verktyg Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2814 Location: SF Bay Area Frenchbuilt wrote: Since so few people knew about these tires we just did what we thought was OK. It just seemed like a good idea to put on more glue after each tire (flat) change. Dan I guess that I didn't make it clear. I re-glued every tire that I changed on the road after I got home. What was important was that the rim cement remained tacky or stick enough to mount a spare so that we could finish the ride. Frenchbuilt wrote: I have repaired all types of sew ups and often glued bits of old tires into the cut up casing using all sorts of glues (Latex I think). A sew up was dead only when cut in half! For us tires were so expensive (especially the silk ones) that we made them last a long time even when lumpy. (we were only 15 at the time and no money)Dan Here's a Clement 50 sewup tire that someone gave me in early 1974 when I first started riding on sewups. It was flat when I got it and had been patched a number of times already. I used it as a training tire for several years. I was working a bike shop for $3.00 an hour plus going to school full time thus I was a "starving student" of sorts. Our shop was a few blocks away from UNM and I was able to work around my school schedule. Back in 1974 and 75 I rode this tire for riding in the rain and snow and as a training wheel. The side walls of the casing got nicked several times so I applied patches cut out of an old Dacron shirt. I had some latex cement that was made for patching air mattresses, rubber boats and so on. This tire probably dates to 1972 or 73. It still holds air and the Pastali rim cement is still holding strong. I'd be tempted to ride it a little but if I had had a blowout then I'd loose my conversation piece. _________________ Chas. SF Bay Area, CA USA ============== 1984 Criterium 1969 TdF 1971 TdF 1974 TdF 1984 TdF x 2 Bikes 1970 SC 1971 SC 1972 SC 1984 SC 1984 Team Pro 1985 Professional 1990s Team Replica Rebuilding Wheels 1960s     gitaneusa.com Forum Index » Vintage Gitane You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum All times are GMT - 8 Hours   Page 1 of 1   All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First  Select a forum Gitane USA----------------Vintage GitaneGitane RacingModern GitanePro Racing - Classics/Giro/Tour....Owner Gallery   Powered by phpBB © 2001-2004 phpBB Group Designed for Trushkin.net | Themes Database.