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New member with a new "old" Gitane!! Help! 
PostPosted: Wed May 15, 2013 6:31 pm Reply with quote
Soulpower
Joined: 15 May 2013
Posts: 1
Location: Quebec
Hi

I just bought a Gitane and sadly besides the frame I don't think any component is the original. I've being trying to id it and so far I believe is a Olympic or Super Olympic or a Champion du Monde from early 70's. but since I'm no expert I'd really appreciate your help!

The bike is super light. I can't be sure how light it is but the bathroom scale showed something between 20 and 22 lb.

here are some photos.



























Cheers!
-Amin

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Gitane 70's
Peugeot 70's
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PostPosted: Thu May 16, 2013 10:29 am Reply with quote
vanhelmont
Joined: 11 Dec 2007
Posts: 242
Location: Florida
Hi Amin,
You appear to have mafac brake levers, which are probably original, along with the headset, so it's probably not the Super Olympic. I can't make out from the picture whether you have a 5 or 6 speed freewheel. A 6-speed freewheel suggests Olympic, and 5-speed would be Champion du Monde. Of course that could have been changed as many other parts were, but it takes some careful work to adjust the stays and dropout to make it fit properly.

People often have a good reason for changing components, and whoever owned your bike at some point put in wide ratio gears, probably to get up hills. They likely also had to change the rear derailleur to shift wider ratio gears. Since the bikes with nice light frames were usually racing bikes, that came with narrow range of gears, this was a fairly common thing to do.

Dave
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FrankenBike 
PostPosted: Thu May 16, 2013 5:25 pm Reply with quote
verktyg
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 2814
Location: SF Bay Area
Greetings...

You have somewhat of a "frankenbike" (as in Frankenstein). Wink

The frame was most likely a 1974 or 75 Champion du Monde. Many of the parts have been changed.

For example those Atax stems were used on mid 70s Peugeot mixte bikes. The hubs look like Campagnolo Gran Sport models from the late 70s or early 80s. The Wolber Super Champion Alpine rims are from the 80s.

The Shimano crank has a swagged on steel "spider" for mounting the chainrings rather than a single piece aluminum forging. It's probably from the 1980s

Those Suntour derailleurs date from the mid 80s.

The headset would have been a Stronglight P3 model. Your headset appears to be cobbled together with a bunch of old parts.

How did this happen? Most likely at some point the bike was parted out and someone put it back together with a mishmash of parts.

This does not mean that your bike is a "piece of junk".... I have a bunch of frankenbikes myself.

The French made bikes to ride not look at and regardless of the components it should be a fun bike to ride.

The frame and wheels are the 2 most important parts of a bike and yours are good quality.

It's just not a "concurs" machine.

Clean it up, service the bearings and have fun riding it.

BTW! your stem is WAY too high! You should have at least 3" (75mm) of the stem sticking into the steering tube.

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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
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New member with a new "old" Gitane!! Help! 
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