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Christophe

Hi ! Most of the bikes discussed here are racing bikes, so I thought a lady's gitane would make a change. I was hunting for a pair these rare mavic clincher rims with normandy hubs to put on my Interclub. I like tubulars on smooth roads, but not for commuting, and large cyclo-cross tubulars are so expensive. So I came across this nice gitane pour dames for cheap ( 30 Euros ).
It's got the rims I was looking for, a sturdy Sugino super maxy crank ( 40 x 48 , in 110 BCD which is quite interesting, you guess why) , a 14x24 atom freewheel, and a nice moustache handlebar. Brakes are the so famous mafac squeakers , the levers are very loose lateraly. I like the pulley along the rear brake cable. Unfortunately the luggage rack and mudgards have been removed.

It seems to be the Evry model shown on 1978 catalogue, but oddly enough the fork lacks the eyelets for the front rack.

I don't know what to do with this bike, apart from using its wheels on my interclub. Maybe put some tubular rims on and let it go for cheap, maybe keep it for spare parts.

By the way, I have two questions for you specialists :
- when on the largest gear ( 24 teeth ), the rear derailer nearly touches the spikes, and I don't like that at all. There's plenty of room between the smallest gear and the frame, could I unscrew the freewheel and put some spacer between the freewheel and the spikes ?
- can anyone explain how to take apart these french bottom brackets ? I'd like to keep and re-use the sugino maxy and it's bracket for a future touring bike project.

Thanks for help.

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Frenchbuilt

These bikes are very nice and look more like todays racing bikes....even more so than the normal mens framed bikes of the past.

Dan

sandranian · Site Admin

Nice bike, and thanks for posting!

scozim

Nice color and nice bike. Better yet - a mixte with drilled chainrings. That's novel - and cool! I've been using a mixte as my mailbox runner on a gravel road - it's a blast to ride.