gitaneusa.com :: View topic - ~'82 Gitane? Help with identification please!

genkaimade

Hi all,

Firstly, congratulations for having put together so much wisdom on this forum, I ghost browsed it for a while to try and figure something out about Gitane bikes before buying the bike that is the subject of this thread, and found a treasure trove of bike knowledge!

Unfortunately said information has not helped me identify my purchase. Having looked through catalogues and the alike, I think it might be a 1982 model given its decals, but otherwise I am clueless sorry. Any help identifying it would be much appreciated!

I have attached images below.

Thank you!

Alexander

P.S. I should note that the rack on the back was most definitely added on by a previous owner.

lofter

hi and welcome , thanks for the nice remarks about the website. I think everyone here appreciates it . we've all contributed in some way to making it a very knowledgeable place for reference and pleasure of enjoying the gitane brand. ive looked over the 82 catalog and just from what ive seen it may be a esprit .
http://www.gitaneusa.com/images/catalog/1982/british/1982-British-catalogue0005.jpg
the campy cranks , the color , the high flanged front wheel hub , the inside weineman brake levers. looks like the front derailleur has been changed and the back says Raleigh so maybe that one too? the catalog is a british version . don't know where you are from . this is the only 82 we have unfortunenately . im going off the specs on the last pages of the catalog.

genkaimade

lofter

yeah , a lot of times we can get close by tubing decals, drop outs, and componets , but even in the catalog there is no tubing decal. so in this case I can only go on the components. usually when there is no 531 or vitus decals it tends to be on the lower end of the catalogs . the decals are one of the first things I tend to look at and a good place to start looking. the higher end bike seem to have the 531 and vitus tubing . it looks to be in good shape and should clean up nicely . sorry I didn't see your city and country in the bottom of your post . as you can see we are missing some catalogs in the early 80s , but yours happened to be right there. Wink

have fun fixing it up as YOU like to . and have fun riding it around. Very Happy

verktyg

I agree with lofter, it's a 1982 UK Gitane Espirit. It has an interesting Campagnolo Sport steel cotterless crankset.

The derailleurs were originally Huret Eco models. The front has been changed to a Suntour and the rear to a Raleigh badged Huret Eco.

The pedals are some kind of MTB pedals.

The seat and stem look like they are set a little high. The both need to be inserted at least 75mm (3").

genkaimade

Thank you very much for the help everyone!

Needless to say I am still doing it up so haven't played with seat and stem height, but will be sure to sort them out before riding ^.^

But yes, this is proving to be a fun little project! I'm not going to be doing anything too fancy to it (Oxford unfortunately has ridiculous levels of bike theft), but I will be sure to post pictures of it once it is tidied up ^.^

genkaimade

vanhelmont

The common steel cranks on older British bikes are cottered cranks, which are easier to machine, and therefore cheaper.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/cotters.html

Cottered cranks require hard steel, otherwise the cotters deform. I had that problem in China, being bigger and stronger than the typical Chinese cyclist. If you tried to make them with alloy, the cotter pin and maybe also the crank would deform and become loose.

Alloy cranks are cotterless. The most common kind use a square tapered shaft, that matches a square tapered hole in the crank.

A steel cotterless crank is pretty unusual. If you want to go to the trouble of machining cotterless cranks, you usually use alloy, which is lighter and stiffer. The main advantage I can see is that cottered cranks can be hard to disassemble to clean and grease the bottom bracket.

Dave

verktyg

As Dave mentioned, steel cotterless cranks were not very common especially after the 1960s.

The use of cotters to attach an arm to a round shaft have been employed for hundreds of years. For example steam powered railroad locomotives, machinery from water to steam powered equipment and so on.

The problem with cottered cranks on bicycles arises from using soft cotters and or soft steel crank arms. They distort and come loose from hard riding.

Cotterless cranks have been used on bikes for decades. The crank arms are force fit onto a tapered spindle providing a stronger connection. They're usually more expensive to manufacture than cottered cranksets.

In the 1940 forged aluminum alloy cotterless cranks were being used on top quality European bikes. By the early 1970s several Japanese companies started offering inexpensive cast aluminum crank arms.

In the late 70s several European crank manufacturers introduced steel cotterless crankset. Nervar and Campagnolo were among those companies.

Nervar steel cotterless crank

Campagnolo Sport steel cotterless crank

Campy Sport steel cranks were better made than the others. They were intended to provide a better solution that cottered cranks.

They were never very popular. Campagnolo showed them in their catalog for only a few years. They were in the 1971 catalog. The 1974 catalog shows the Gran Sport cranks with aluminum alloy crank arm.

Campagnolo Gran Sport aluminum alloy cotterless crank

Even though these steel Campy cranks weren't shown in any catalogs after 1971, they still showed up on a few new bikes in the mid 70s. Raleigh put them some lower mid range model bikes. Probably some Italian bikes too.