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foofus

Hi all! I am hoping some of you folks can help me out. My family has had an orange, 4-seat tandem bike for about 30+ years. It's labeled "Gitane" but none of our bike shops in our area have any idea about it, and I can't find any smiilar pics of others online.

Can anyone help me figure out if Gitane was making these for sale, or perhaps the local bike shop made a Frankenbike? Would repair parts even be available? Even the tires are non-standard size! It was purchased in Virginia around 1978 to the best of our recollection.

Pics are here: http://foofus.com/a/p/photos/oldgitane/

Thanks in advance for any clues you can give us! Smile

smilingroadrunner

Lofter, you got your ears on this morning----this one is probably right up your alley.

Welcome to the Gitane Site foofus---you'll find some great knowledgeable members here. But I have a feeling Don will enjoy this one!

I Like Steel !!!
__________________
C.A.
Salina, Ks

foofus

Thanks, roadrunner! I looked through the catalogs on the site but don't see any tandems with more than two seats in them. Those tandems seem to have one long chain going through each set of two cogs, where our bike has four cogs and four individual, regular-sized bike chains connecting them.

I'm super curious about the origins of this thing. We've always enjoyed just being the weird family with the 4-seat bike around the neighborhood. My dad thinks perhaps a bike shop owner was bored and welded a bunch of regular bikes together, but I don't think so. It's made of really heavy steel and weighs like 150lbs, and why would you use steel that thick for single-seaters?

smilingroadrunner

Yep this is a pretty cool cycle. It is the " real " thing. Interesting that Gitane ventured into several unique designs. For instance the "Rosalie" featured in the '70 catalog. But also foldable - collapsible designs, side-by sides, and your Quadracycle. Looks like family fun.

Great for Parades !!! Very Happy

I Like Steel !!!!
________________
C.A.
Salina Ks.

'70 TdeF
'71 Interclub
'72 Interclub x 2
'72 TdeF
'73 TdeF
'72-'73 S. C. in the wings
'86 Performance
'87 Victoire

lofter

welcome foofus , yes gitane made a bunch of these crazy bikes , the decals date yours to the year 1970 . if you look at the catalog from 1970 you will see bikes with those red and blue stickers. I have seen one like this restored out in Pennsylvania I think .it was same color and everything . gitane made three seaters and a 4 seater and believe it or not ive seen a five seater before on some French websites. these were a oddity like the roasalie and the mini penny farthing . probably find them in flat or boardwalk areas. a place down in florida rented the roasalie four wheel gitane by a beach . as far as parts wow, tough to get might have to make some of them . the big tires are from gitanes motorcycle division probably rims too . my three seater has a different set of forks on it as probably it had too heavy of a load and bent the regular forks. just a guess tho. it has a different triple tree on it too. yours looks to be in great shape. they are not in any catalog weve seen .and they are HEAVY .awesome bike . im waiting for one to come up for sale sometime.

foofus

Thanks, Don! That helps a lot. Smile

I doubt my parents are interested in selling it but for our curiosity, what would you expect someone to pay for this bike in decent condition?

lofter

no prob, here a pic of the restored bike http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikecentric/3446750998/in/photostream/
it was restored in Frederick maryland not pa . oh I don't know, there has to be a market for it . I bought my three seater for 235.00 but its pretty beat up. id say 500 to 600 bucks . its rare on the fact that its a four seater, but they are not something you ride a lot . a adult basically has to drive it as its kinda shaky because there stretched out . and it takes a little effort too because of the weight . kids love them because it has the cool factor . get too many adults on it and thats a ton of weight. its hard to price sentimental. I have a few more pics on my pc at work I saved.

foofus

OMG DON, THAT'S OUR BIKE!

We used to live in Frederick Maryland and took it to Bicycle Escape to get the brake cables fixed after the old ones wore out. This would have been in the early to mid 1990s?

foofus

Correction, Dad says early 2000-ish after I moved out.

lofter

very cool , awesome are you sure they didn't do more ? I thought they had to make new spokes and maybe new paint ? I cant find the article on the web anymore . I googled gitane quad and then images, found the photo and scolled down and read some of the comments and seen a link to the news paper. I remember reading the article when it was still up maybe look at the bike shop website . maybe they kept the article.

foofus

I'm not exactly sure what was done to it over the years. I know for sure about the brake cable because we had planned to ride it in Walkersville's town parade of some sort and couldn't due to no brakes.

They probably did other touch-ups and things too. Dad says he ordered the tires from somewhere in Falls Church, VA.

lofter

yep a parade bike for sure. I was going to ride my 3 seater this year but decided against because the parade can almost be too slow to ride it without having to start and stop , rinse and repeat. so I rode my mini penny farthing
http://postimg.org/image/sgmz0hr6p/
it was hard even because of the pace of the parade.

foofus

Just for kicks, we found this today with the old bike stuff:

http://foofus.com/a/p/photos/oldgitane/4.jpg

foofus

That mini penny farthing is AWESOME.

lofter