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Foil Decal TdF? 
PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2012 4:18 pm Reply with quote
Laing
Joined: 02 May 2012
Posts: 4
My first post.

Back in 1972 I bought a TdF, but I was unfortunately hit by an on duty policeman in his cruiser a couple years later. I always liked that bike so I recently bought a Gitane, or probably more accurately, pieces of two Gitanes. It was sold as a Super Corsa, but I figered it was a TdF, at least the forks appear to be because of the Simplex droupouts. The frame has Campagnolo dropouts like my old Tdf had. The dropout has the number 6306044 or 6360044 depending on which way you read the overstrike. The fork has TV68 stamped on it. Hopefully the photos show up. Can anyone tell for sure what I have?









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Laing
Cocoa, FL
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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2012 6:10 pm Reply with quote
Gypsy
Joined: 07 Aug 2011
Posts: 26
Location: Minnesota
Beautiful. Thumbs up for it being a Super Corsa. I see campy derailleurs but no shifters. Do you have the campy barcons?

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Ken
Redwood Falls, MN

1972 Gitane TdF
1972 Peugeot PX-10 Grand Bois lugs
1970 Peugeot PX-10 Nervex fancy lugs
and a bunch of other bikes that are sweet,
but not FRENCH
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PostPosted: Sun May 06, 2012 10:34 am Reply with quote
Laing
Joined: 02 May 2012
Posts: 4
The Campy derailleurs did not come with the bike, I had them and was test fitting. The front derailleur seems to fit the French seat tube just fine. What I have for shifters are Spidel retrofriction. I haven't decided on derailleurs yet. My bike back in 72 came with a chrome plated steel Campy Gran Sport rear and a (Nuovo?) Record front. It had Campy Tipo LF hubs. I kind of want to get Simplex Super LJ derailleurs, but they tend to cost more than Campys these days. Ditto on the Mafac Competition brakes and Simplex seatpost.
I have some beautiful NOS French thread Lyotard plaform pedals (the best pedals ever made...) that I bought a while back, an NOS French thread Spidel crank (Campy copy), a nice used Ideale Model 92 saddle and a new set of decals.
The Cinelli stem in the picture seems to fit just fine - no wiggle room but it slides in and out without force. As far as I know it is a 22.2 and not a 22.0.

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Laing
Cocoa, FL
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Late 70s, eraly 70s Super Corsa 
PostPosted: Sun May 06, 2012 12:21 pm Reply with quote
verktyg
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 2814
Location: SF Bay Area
Greettings,

Looks like a great bike. I love the "willow leaf" seat stay caps on the early TdFs and Super Corsas. Cool

Regardless of what others may say, the defining factor between the Tour de France model and the Super Corsa is the length of the steering tube.

ALL TdFs from the foil decal era came with Stronglight P3 headsets and ALL Super Corsas had Campy headsets.

There is an easy to check your frame. Put the fork in the head tube flush with the crown race and measure how much of the steerer sticks out of the top.





A steerer for a Campy headset should stick out at least 42-43mm while the P3 steerer is going to be about 35-38mm.

Also, the fork crown races for Campy headsets are 26.4mm while the P3 are 27mm in diameter.

Your frame is probably a 1968 to 1970 model. It was not uncommon for bike shops to rob Campy components off of new Super Corsas so that could be why the bike came with the lower level components! Confused

A Super Corsa, even one from the late 60s would have had all top of the line Campy Nuovo Record/Record components.

The wholesale cost for a Super Corsa plus freight costs back then were so low that many bike shops bought them to part out. The Campy components would have gone on a British or Italian frame with a different bottom bracket so the shops left the metric threaded French bottom brackets and usually the French headsets in the frames.

We did that to several Super Corsas at our shop in the early 70s Same thing with Italian made "all Campy" Atala and Botttecchia bikes.

BTW back then "all Campy" meant everything but the brakes. Every Super Corsa equipped with Campy brakes, according to their owners came from the factory that way! Laughing

Campy brakes were so hard to get and added $125-$175 to the cost of a bike that sold for ~$300 that it's highly unlikely that they came from the factory that way.

Gitane Super Corsas came with MAFAC Racer or Competition center pull brakes. Motobecanes and a lot of Italian all Campy bikes had Universal brakes. For several years after Campy brakes came out, MAFAC brakes were still the choice of many pros!

Most likely the Campy brakes on most Super Corsas were installed by Mel Pinto Imports, the Gitane distributor back then or by a bike shop or previous owner.

Whenever we tried to order a Super Corsa with Campy brakes from Mel Pinto, he couldn't get them (Campy brakes were scarce until after the bike boom ended in 1974).

I have 2 Super Corsas with Campy brakes, a 1970 and a 1972. The brakes on both of them are post 1974 manufacture so there is no way they could be "factory installed".

Cinelli made 22mm stems for French bikes. Also, shops and owners frequently sanded down the 22.2mm quills to fit a French fork. The actual size of French stems should be 21.9mm to fit inside the 22mm steerer. Sometimes the steerers were a little larger than 22mm.

Chas. Breaker of hearts, destroyer of bicycle myths! Twisted Evil

If wishing made it so...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPiaUGAgvX4

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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
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PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2012 3:58 am Reply with quote
Laing
Joined: 02 May 2012
Posts: 4
38 mm = TdF forks, but I was pretty sure the forks were TdFs because of the Simplex dropouts in the forks. It may not be obvious from the pictures, but the forks and frame are slightly different colors. Not sure if they faded differently over the years, but the forks are a somewhat lighter and "greener" blue than the frame. I think that the forks and frame are from different bicycles because of the campy/simplex dropouts but everything appears to be straight and undented.

Thanks for the information.

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Laing
Cocoa, FL
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Foil Decal TdF? 
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