gitaneusa.com Forum Index » Vintage Gitane » Vintage - but which model? Goto page 1, 2  Next    View previous topic :: View next topic  Vintage - but which model?   Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 9:34 am joe v Joined: 04 May 2009 Posts: 15 Location: Belgium Hello forum-members! Just discovered this page while seriously thinking about buying this bike. Seller only has this one lousy picture, but maybe you specialists can tell me something about model and year? It certainly looks tempting! Could it be a Super Corsa or Olympic? Seems to have campy equipment / honeycomb dropouts/ old style lettering ... Thank you for any info, Joseph Last edited by joe v on Tue May 05, 2009 4:45 am; edited 1 time in total   Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 11:14 am dan lenik Joined: 10 Jan 2009 Posts: 34 Location: allentown, pennsylvania If its under 75 euro, buy it and don't look back!   Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 11:25 am joe v Joined: 04 May 2009 Posts: 15 Location: Belgium dan lenik wrote: If its under 75 euro, buy it and don't look back! Guy wants 175 though (225 at first), maybe I should wait a little longer, eh? Buy it now!   Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 12:28 pm verktyg Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2814 Location: SF Bay Area That's about $235 USD. Buy it now. Forget about the decals. It looks like about a 1974-76 European model with a full Reynolds 531 frame. The components look like Campy Nuovo Record cranks, pedals, derailleurs and hubs. The brakes, stem and bars look decent plus it has a 3TTT seatpost. THROW AWAY THE SEAT! The components alone are worth more than €175... Even if shipping is €100 it's still a great deal. Offer the seller €150 but be prepared to give them their asking price. Chas.   Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 7:45 am joe v Joined: 04 May 2009 Posts: 15 Location: Belgium So I got it for 150 euros in the end - so far so good! Bit of a disappointment : brakes & levers are NOT Campagnolo Nuovo Record, like most of the other components, but Dura-Ace; nice enough drilled levers, but the brakes are a really matte finish, nothing shiny about it. Oh well, bike cleaned up pretty well and the best surprise of all : that seat the forum (and I) were thinking of throwing away, turned out to be a great looking brown leather Brooks! (Oh yes, the shop that sold it slammed their sticker right over the headtube decal too - no way of taking that off without damaging the Gitane-decal, so I guess I'll leave that alone) Still no definite clues about the model/year though... Identifying European Model   Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 12:40 pm verktyg Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2814 Location: SF Bay Area Congratulations, you got a great bike. As far as the Dura-Ace brakes go, the calipers were every bit as good as Campagnolos. In fact, Campy COPIED the Dura-Ace quick release mechanisms for their Gran Sport, Triomphe and Victory brakes. The satin anodized aluminum finish was just like Campy's. Neither brakes were brightly polished. When Dura-Ace sidepull brakes came out in 1974, they became the standard TdF owner upgrade from the Mafac centerpulls that came on those bikes. Campy brakes were still hard to find until at least the mid 70s plus they cost twice as much money as the Dura-Ace brakes. Campy brakes were the "holy grail" from the time they were introduced in 1969 until around 1974-75 when other makes of premium quality sidepull brakes came onto the market. I always considered them vanity items! I worked on a lot of bikes with Campy brakes and I never cared for them because they didn't stop as well as the pedestrian Mafac, Weinmann or Dia-Compe centerpull brakes. Even with after market brake pads Campy brakes required more hand pressure to stop. When I got my 1971 Campy equipped Super Corsa in 1973 it too had Mafac Competition brakes. Sidepull bakes were the big thing at the time, that's what the Pros were using. I couldn't afford Campy brakes back then even if they were available. I settled for a set of Universal Model 68 sidepulls. These were some of the worst stopping brakes ever! The brake pads were only good for polishing the rims, that's all! After a lot of close calls I put in some Weinmann red brake blocks and I had a vanity set of brakes that stopped just as well as the cheaper Weinmann sidepulls! BTW, I have about half a dozen classic bikes with Campy brakes. I've switched most of them to after market brake pads (and they still don't stop all that well). Anti-Campy rant over. Getting back to your bike, Gitane used the Huret "honeycomb" rear dropouts on most of their performance models from mid 1974 until maybe 1977? Sometime after mid 1974 Gitane switched from the Mylar foil decals like on your bike to the next style yellow or green plastic decals. The foil decals were very fragile and were easily damaged in a bike stand. Old style silver decal used on competition model Gitanes New style decals introduced in 1974 Replacement silver seat tube decals were unavailable but we had hundreds of the red and some of the rarer blue seat tube decals that were used on Gran Sport and other non competition model Gitanes. Back in the day I replaced the damaged silver foil seat tube decal on my Super Corsa with a blue Gran Sport decal. I cut the top and bottom bands off and left only the Gitane name. Picture of the less common blue seat tube decal with top and bottom bands. It's possible that someone at a Gitane bike shop replaced a damaged silver foil seat tube decal with the red one on your bike. The other possibility is that your frame was an early 1974 model and Gitane ran out of the silver foil seat tube decals and hadn't yet switched production over to the newer style decals (very likely). Same thing with the old style Reynolds 531 decal on the seat tube. The next generation of Reynolds Gitanes had the decal on the down tube just above the shift levers. There was also a band of gold added to the bottom of the new style Reynolds decals. Next thing, your bike has the long point Prugnat Type S "Italian" style lugs. After about 1972 these lugs were only used on Gitane's top models. The style of Wagner fork crown on your bike wasn't used very much by Gitane. Gitane didn't use that color of aqua blue after 1974. The chrome rear stays were only used on the top models. By 1974 chrome plating on frames fell out of style partly because the cost of chrome became exorbitant due to embargoes against several countries that mined chrome ore. It looks like you have a Stronglight P3 headset... but the fork crown race doesn't match up correctly. My guess is that the frame originally came with a Campy headset and someone replaced most of it with a Stronglight P3. Brooks or Ideale leather saddles were a common owner upgrade. One last thing, the 3TTT seatpost?? It should have had a Campy NR seatpost?? So here's my guess as to what your bike is: I think that it's a very early 1974 Olympic/4 model 1852. http://www.gitaneusa.com/images/catalog/1974_pg1.jpg Someone replaced the Mafac centerpulls with Dura-Ace sidepulls; they also replaced the saddle and seat post. The headset is kludged up for some reason. The Campy headset may have been badly pitted so they did a poor quality repair because French threaded headsets are getting very expensive and hard to find. If the headset isn't smooth, I'd consider replacing it , but that's another issue. Here's the front and back cover of the 1974 French Gitane catalog. The bike pictured is similar to yours but it's probably a special team or show bike. It has Campy Super Record brakes plus "Drillium" SR chain rings and a Drillium NR rear derailleur. It also has brazed on willow leaf seat stay caps and yours are the standard production swaged seat stay tops. Notice, it has World Champion 5 color tape at the chrome/paint intersection on the forks and stays. So once again, congratulations, you got a really nice very rare bike for a bargain! Chas.   Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 10:18 pm joe v Joined: 04 May 2009 Posts: 15 Location: Belgium Chas, thank you for this wealth of information(!) Really appreciated. One detail still suprises me : the lugs are plain (no cut-outs) and the seatstay-caps have no engravings or pantographing at all; does that still match the probable model/year? Thanks, Joseph   Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 1:49 am Gtane Joined: 14 Sep 2007 Posts: 681 Location: UK Joseph, Nice bike indeed. Well spotted. I really like the equipment, particularly those Shimano brakes. Lovely detail. For older sidepulls, I'm a fan of Weinmann 500s - short reach and good stopping power yet extremely light. Enjoy the bike and I hope you're successful in taking off the shop sticker, if you go that route. However, I guess that it's part of the machine's history and if added when the bike was originally purchased, it's quite a nice touch to have. Even if in wrong place. Tim _________________ Everything has a cycle   Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 5:26 am sandranian Site Admin Joined: 27 Feb 2006 Posts: 2701 Location: Southern California Wow. That really is a great deal for that bike. I have seen them use that decal scheme on the old team bikes for "Frigecreme", (sp?), the team that Joop Zoetemelk rode for in the early 1970's. _________________ Stephan Andranian Costa Mesa, CA www.gitaneusa.com decal removal   Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 5:36 am dan lenik Joined: 10 Jan 2009 Posts: 34 Location: allentown, pennsylvania Leaving the decal adds to the charm of the bike. If you choose to remove it, do it with a heat gun and your finger nails very gently and slowly. You'll heat up your finger tips pretty good, so keep some ice water nearby. If you are patient, you'll remove the shop decal without whats underneath. Nice bike! Good luck with your project! Sincerely, Dan   Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 5:55 am joe v Joined: 04 May 2009 Posts: 15 Location: Belgium sandranian wrote: Wow. That really is a great deal for that bike. I have seen them use that decal scheme on the old team bikes for "Frigecreme", (sp?), the team that Joop Zoetemelk rode for in the early 1970's. NOT a good reason to like the bike, me always having been a Merckx-fan!   Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 10:40 am verktyg Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2814 Location: SF Bay Area joe v wrote: One detail still suprises me : the lugs are plain (no cut-outs) and the seatstay-caps have no engravings or pantographing at all; does that still match the probable model/year? As I mentioned, the bike on the 1974 French catalog cover was probably a special "show" bike made for a trade show or less likely a team bike. In 1976 Lucien Van Impe won the Tour de France. We had one of his Gitane team bikes on display at our shop. I'm not sure how we came by it but we had documentation on the bike. I don't know whether it was used in the TdF or not. Anyway, I was very disappointed in the bike when it arrived because it looked just like any other hard ridden Gitane from that time period. Everything showed signs of heavy wear. The cutouts in production lugs were stamped in during manufacturing. The Prugnat lugs with factory cutouts didn't appear before about 1975 or 76. Same thing with the Bocama lugs in the picture of the Reynolds decal on the blue frame in my previous message. "Hand Cut" lugs were pretty much only used on frames made by small custom builders. Assortment of Prugnat lugs Gitane used a decal with their logo on the seat stay caps of their top of the line bikes for a few years. They also had some caps with a raised logo cast into them. These were much less common. So like I said, you have a great bike and it's very likely a 1974 model produced at the time Gitane was making changes from the previous models. The frame has the "newer" Huret honeycomb rear dropouts instead of Simplex or Campy, Prugnat lugs instead of Bocama, Foil decals, and the older aqua blue paint. 1974 was the end of the Bike Boom and manufacturers frequently made substitutions in that era. Gitane probably saved a few centimes using up the older parts. Chas.   Posted: Tue May 26, 2009 11:46 pm STW Joined: 12 Sep 2007 Posts: 20 Great find Joe. Those Dura Ace brakes are very classy and interesting to guys like me who have too many N.Record braked bikes around the house. You seldom see those early ones now. My Gitane is similar in some ways, but I think mine is a year or two later than yours based partly on Chas's information. From various sources I've tentatively dated mine to 1975 or 76. My frame is very similar to yours: -honeycomb rear drops, with the same touches on the stay to drop junction -chrome rear stays and lower forks and crown -non-engraved seat stay tops, -long point lugs like yours and without windows -same crown with the triangular detail on top of the flat shoulders, so different from the one in Chas's photo -newer style decals as in Chas's photo -no braze ons -531 DB throughout decals in French on fork and down tube -26.6 seatpost size -loads of tire clearance -fender eyelets The Super Corsas I've seen have lug cutouts and seat stay top engravings on an otherwise identical frame to ours. Also Campagnolo equipped like yours so yours may be a slightly earlier Super Corsa. Mine was labeled simply "Racing Team" on the top tube. I bought it new in 1977 (it was a left over model from the previous year or two) so I know where mine's been. It was a gold with that 70s greenish tint. Was fitted out with the standard higher end French stuff: -Stronglight headset, crank, bb -Mafac Competition centerpulls long reach version, and full hood levers -Huret Jubilee derailleurs and clamp on shifters -Huret cable clamps on top tube, chain stay and bb wrap around cable guide -Atom pedals, christophe clips and straps -Balleri (?) bar and stem with the tricolor tape on stem quill -Normandy Luxe hubs, Mavic rims (I think) and Hutchinson tubulars (I think) -Don't remember the original seat post (??) -Also don't remember original saddle--I put a Brooks on it brand new at the shop, and maybe that came with the NR copy two bolt seat post it's always had (not the Sakae Ringyo SR two bolt either, but one with an engraved name I can't decipher) Hope you like the bike, because these things can last a long time. I've been riding mine steadily for 32 years. After I'd had it a year, still a teenager, I did the vanity brake thing Chas mentioned putting SunTour Superbe sidepulls on it. I had it repainted a couple years later in Red (teenagers--what are you going to do), and, worse, I had shifter bosses and top-of-bb cable guides brazed on. It spent a lot of years as a fixed gear hack in the rain of London and Dublin and Chapel Hill. It spent a year in full N.Record stuff with rattle can paint. It's back with its original stuff now but with a TA crank (the Stronglight crank is cracked at the spindle hole and hanging in the shop). Here is a link to some photos for comparison. Shown is its newish third repaint. TA crank is no longer a triple, and wheels are still the Record hub/MA-2 wheels waiting for the Luxe/MA-2 build I need to get around to finally. SR bar and stem. N.Record headset. Also still deciding whether to have the lugs lined as originally. http://picasaweb.google.com/mitch.harris/GitaneForUpload# --Mitch   Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 9:31 am joe v Joined: 04 May 2009 Posts: 15 Location: Belgium Just noticed this small detail : the adjustable cup clearly reads 'Sakae 1.37 x 24 made in Japan' - am I dreaming or does that mean somebody at one point adapted the BB to english thread??? BSC BB Cup   Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 9:56 am verktyg Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2814 Location: SF Bay Area What size and make is the fixed cup? French metric bottom brackets have right hand threads on both sides. British threaded BBs have left hand threads on the fixed cup side. Two possibilities: 1. Someone replaced the adjustable cup because the original Campy cup or BB was worn out. A ham fisted hammer mechanic forced a British threaded cup into the metric BB or they chased the metric threads with a BSC BB tap. Either way, a piss poor hammer wielding repair! 2. Very unlikely, but it could have had a BSC threaded BB from the factory. It would have been Canpy, Stronglight or Sugino, not SR. The fixed cup would be LH thread... or horrors, they could have forced a LH British BB tap into the RH threaded metric BB. Chas. Vintage - but which model?     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 2   Goto page 1, 2  Next 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.