gitaneusa.com Forum Index » Vintage Gitane » Hosteller    View previous topic :: View next topic  Hosteller   Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 12:30 pm dan lenik Joined: 10 Jan 2009 Posts: 34 Location: allentown, pennsylvania I have a Gitane Hosteller that I am trying to find out when it was made. It has (had) a cottered triple crank, suntour vgt derailleurs, chrome racks and fenders, soubitz generater light set. Any ideas? Thanks! [url=http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aV2oHjGS][img]http://www.postimage.org/aV2oHjGS.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aV2oLw50][img]http://www.postimage.org/aV2oLw50.jpg[/img][/url]   Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 2:45 pm greyhundguy Joined: 09 Apr 2008 Posts: 678 Location: South-Central VIRGINIA Dan, Looks like you have a 1970 Hosteller...see the attached link to the Catalog page on this site. http://www.gitaneusa.com/images/catalog/1970_pg3.jpg Nice Crankset and Derailleur upgrade on yours. It appears to be in good condition and is likely a comfortable ride. Jay _________________ Dance like nobody is watching.   Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 2:58 pm greyhundguy Joined: 09 Apr 2008 Posts: 678 Location: South-Central VIRGINIA Dan, Is that an Ideale Saddle or Brooks? Jay _________________ Dance like nobody is watching. Hosteller   Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 3:23 pm verktyg Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2814 Location: SF Bay Area Judging from the burgundy color, I'd guess that this was a 1973 or 74. Not all 1974 Gitanes had the new style decals. The 61cm TdF that I acquired last month is probably a 1974 with old style foil decals and Stronglight dropouts instead of the Huret honeycomb ones that came on the 74s. The seat is an un-dyed Ideale 90 probably pretreated to soften it. When I first looked at it I wrote Ideale. When I looked again and saw the copper rivets it made me think vintage Brooks Pro because Ideale had chrome plated rivets on a lot of their top saddles. I should have stuck with my first impression based on the broken-in shape. The pre-treated Daniel Rebour model Ideale saddles frequently took on the anatomical shape as pictured whereas Brooks saddles rarely do. Chas. Last edited by verktyg on Sun Jan 11, 2009 3:47 am; edited 1 time in total Gitane Hosteller   Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 6:03 pm dan lenik Joined: 10 Jan 2009 Posts: 34 Location: allentown, pennsylvania Thanks to everyone for your help! I wanted to go french on most of the bike, so many things got changed. The saddle is an Ideale 90, changed from bontrager, and mafac levers and hoods to replace the diacompe levers. The crank set is Takagi torney a/10 which I did because it came with those crazy suntour derailleurs. The front derailleur lines the chain up with the big ring at rest and draws to the smaller rings when shifted! The stem shifters changed for some NOS suntour barcons. The wheels are no longer steel 27" but are now a 700c aluminum mailard/weinmann presta set with 700x28 schwalbe marathon plus treads. I also put on another soubitz headlight and fender light as the originals were pretty bashed up. The bike has a lot of scratches but is a pleasure to ride to work. This was the best stuff I had laying around but dont shoot me yet; I kept all the original stuff just incase. [url=http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=gx2qDA00][img] http://www.postimage.org/gx2qDA00.jpg[/img][/url]   Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:04 pm greyhundguy Joined: 09 Apr 2008 Posts: 678 Location: South-Central VIRGINIA Dan, NICE job! You will find the Suntour set up will work well. The Bike is/was intended for comfy travel. I'll agree, and disagree with Chas. on the dating. On looking closer at the Catalogs, 1970 would predate the color of your Bike. It is my understanding that 'Hosteller' was rebadged 'Alpine' in 1974. The 'Hosteller' (Huh? What's that?) moniker did not make alot of sense in the US Market. That said, I'll suggest 1971-73 as a date for your bike. Nice to know someone that wants to ride, not race, to work. Jay _________________ Dance like nobody is watching.   Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 10:27 pm smilingroadrunner Joined: 10 Aug 2007 Posts: 278 Location: Salina, Ks. Dan, Welcome to the forum. What a wonderful piece of early '70's equipment. I'm soooooo envious as you just don't see this model of Gitane. Wonderful job with the refurbish. Love those fenders and racks & light assy. PM me anytime in the future if you even begin to have an inkling of getting tired of this touring machine. I would agree with the earlier posts, the model makes sense--but the color is not common ---however, What do I Know. In my time, I've never personally seen an example of this model. What a jewel !!! I Like Steel !!!! ___________________ C.A. Salina, Ks.   Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 11:03 pm vanhelmont Joined: 11 Dec 2007 Posts: 242 Location: Florida Nicely done! Your front derailleur must be a Suntour Spirt? That's what I had on my Viscount in the mid 70's. I couldn't resist picking one up on ebay last year. Maybe I'll put it on a bike for my daughter, so she'll only have to think "forward=high gear." Dave Hosteller   Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 9:26 am dan lenik Joined: 10 Jan 2009 Posts: 34 Location: allentown, pennsylvania Many thanks to everyone! I am waiting for some brown bar tape to match the seat. I will post more pictures next week. The left side high gear thing still screws me up but it looks right and makes sense! It is amazing to me to see an early example of a touring bike with so much thought put into design. Even today you have to look hard to find rack mounts on a bike or stick up a bank to get the money for an IF or a Rivendell The value of steel was recently proven to me when I let my reckless son ride my Novara Randonee on a bike trip to Michoacan, Mexico (bikemexico.com). My son went screaming down the mountain, failed to negotiate a turn, leveled a concrete post and crashed into a rock wall. He walked away with scratches but crushed the downtube and bent the rear triangle to the left. The bike mechanic put the frame over a tree stump in the middle of his shop and we pulled and stomped it eyeball straight. Bolted it back up and changed the left shift cable and it went perfect for the rest of the tour! It would have been a throwaway in any other material! The frame hangs on the wall in my garage .   Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:37 pm sandranian Site Admin Joined: 27 Feb 2006 Posts: 2701 Location: Southern California Ummmm....biking in Mexico? There have been so many kidnappings there of US citizens (not really making the news, surprisingly), that we won't go there anymore. We live in southern California and used to go down for day trips all the time. No more, though.... _________________ Stephan Andranian Costa Mesa, CA www.gitaneusa.com   Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 1:20 pm verktyg Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2814 Location: SF Bay Area greyhundguy wrote: I'll agree, and disagree with Chas. on the dating. On looking closer at the Catalogs, 1970 would predate the color of your Bike... ...That said, I'll suggest 1971-73 as a date for your bike. Jay, Not to be contentious, but let me share some of my experience with everyone. Gitane or at least the US importer Mel Pinto Imports used the 1970 catalog throughout the bike boom, from 1971 to 1974. Gitane Pacific took over distributing Gitanes in the US sometime in 1974. They brought out a new catalog in 1975 with a much reduced offering. Notice that 3 of the 7 bikes in the 1975 catalog still have the old foil decals. Gitane Pacific offered even fewer models in their 1976 catalog. During the Bike Boom, Gitane dealers had to take whatever they could get. They couldn't specify size or color, just models. Recently I was talking with a LBS owner who used to sell Gitanes. He told me that during the Boom in order to get Gitane Gran Sport models, he had to take 1 bike with sewups such as an Interclub or TdF for every 5 bikes with clinchers. The color chart in the "1970" Gitane was never very accurate and the scanned page in the catalog section is even more off. In 1973 I worked part time assembling bikes at the shop where I bought my first Gitane. I got paid $2.00 a bike and it usually took at least an hour to get one of these properly assembled and ready to ride. I went to work for another shop in 1974 doing the same thing for a lot more money. I worked there for 5 years, managing the shop for the last 3 of them. We stopped selling Gitanes after 1976 because model for model they were way overpriced compared to Motobecane, Peugeot and Raleigh. On top of that they became pretty much unavailable except for some cheap 38 Lb. Taiwanese made non-Gitanes! We kept one on the showroom for several years to let customers test ride so that they could feel the difference between a clunker and a nice bike. Getting back to Gitane colors during the early 70s, white and the candy apple colors dark green, red and aqua blue were the most common ones followed by violet and the more rare copper, gold, dark brown and after 1973 burgundy. I never saw an orange Gitane made after 1973 and light robin egg blue was mainly used on the smallest size men's Gran Sport and and Gran Sport mixtes. Both shops were I worked were located near the University of New Mexico At the beginning of every semester we had a lot of students from other parts of the country bring in their bikes from home to be tuned up or assembled. I got to see Gitanes from all over the country. The only black Gitane that I ever saw in the flesh was a Gran Sport someone from back East brought it in for service. There were several colors of light blue, a darker version that I only saw on TdFs like Lynn posted pics of last year and the robin's egg blue on the Gran Sports. The early 70s Gitane paint jobs consisted of a thin layer "email" over thick white primer with lots of filler. Sometimes you could scratch the solid colors with your finger nail! Gitane improved the quality of their paint in 1974 dropping some colors and adding some new ones. For the US market candy apple dark green, aqua blue, violet, copper and gold were discontinued; orange, (black) and darker TdF light blue were also dropped. The new colors were a darker candy apple blue and red plus a lighter green. The solid colors added were yellow, silver and ??? There were probably other colors but I don't remember them. Chas.   Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 1:40 pm sandranian Site Admin Joined: 27 Feb 2006 Posts: 2701 Location: Southern California You are the best Chas. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your insight and experience with us here. Priceless. _________________ Stephan Andranian Costa Mesa, CA www.gitaneusa.com   Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:08 pm dan lenik Joined: 10 Jan 2009 Posts: 34 Location: allentown, pennsylvania HEAR HEAR! Thanks Chas! Blush....   Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:52 pm verktyg Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2814 Location: SF Bay Area Chas. 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