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PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 10:05 am Reply with quote
verktyg
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 2814
Location: SF Bay Area
sandranian wrote:
....CR List member Jack Bissell, who was involved with a bike shop and/or racing team around Phoenix in the early 1980's. He said the team was outfitted with the Gitane's....

I have seen that sticker on the down tube before, but just can't remember where.


This could have been one of the team bikes from that era that someone kludged together just to sell.

I looked at the photo again right after I posted my last message and it hit me. Look at the top of the bars. The sticker is for GRAB ON foam rubber bar tubes that were popular at one time.

Chas.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 10:26 am Reply with quote
sandranian
Site Admin
Joined: 27 Feb 2006
Posts: 2701
Location: Southern California
Geeze...that is bad! And you are completely correct:

What the heck did that person do with this bike??? I asked the seller some questions...but he didn't respond to my last question regarding the size, so I am not expecting an answer to my latest question with regards to the size, sticker, and stamp in the derailleur hanger.

Are you going to buy this thing, whatever it is?

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Stephan Andranian
Costa Mesa, CA
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 11:12 am Reply with quote
verktyg
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 2814
Location: SF Bay Area
If the price is right..... Wink
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 11:47 am Reply with quote
verktyg
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 2814
Location: SF Bay Area
sandranian wrote:
Chas...notice you have bid on that bike. You better win that auction. I want everyone who participates in the forum to have a Team Pro or a Replica.... I think that is a 1984 Team Pro frame, so don't let it go! Good luck!


I should have my 1985-86 Professional frame tomorrow or monday. So soon I'll have a 2nd Gitane.

Right now I'm bottom feeding on this 56cm bike.

Funny thing is Gitanes are hard to find. they used to be a dime a dozen. I have 5 Motobecanes in my collection and I just gave my 1978 Le Champion frame to a friend.

I have 1978 and 1982 Team Champions, a 1974 Le Champion and 1974 and 1980 Grand Jubiles. When we sold Gitanes we looked down on Motobecanes because of some cheap features they put on their low to mid range bikes.

The paint and lugwork was usually pretty nice but they did things like use straight gage steering tubes with a split bushing inside the tube at the bottom for reinforcement. Also, the brake bridges weren't made of tubing but a round peice of sheetmetal instead.

Chas.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 8:09 pm Reply with quote
fredbeavers
Joined: 07 Jan 2007
Posts: 10
Location: Boulder, CO
sandranian wrote:
The information regarding the snapped Simplex dropouts came from CR List member Jack Bissell, who was involved with a bike shop and/or racing team around Phoenix in the early 1980's. He said the team was outfitted with the Gitane's, and just about every frame snapped in the same place: Drive side dropout at the chain stay. Could have been a bad batch...or something else (maybe it was a team of over 200 pounders???)...who knows. Just relaying information....

I have seen that sticker on the down tube before, but just can't remember where.


I can confirm the info about the broken dropouts - I was on a Gitane-sponsored team in Tucson in the mid-80's and all of our 1984 team bikes suffered dropout cracks as described - and no, we weren't all 200 pounders. I was (and still am) a svelte 155 lbs, and some of our juniors and women were considerably lighter. At the time the factory told us it was a bad batch of dropouts with some porosity in the castings, but who knows?
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 5:41 am Reply with quote
sandranian
Site Admin
Joined: 27 Feb 2006
Posts: 2701
Location: Southern California
(I was joking about the 200 pounds...of course!)

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PostPosted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 11:24 pm Reply with quote
Peter S. Horn
Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 144
Embarassed
Chas,
Sorry to be so impolite as to intervene.

However, on the question of whether or not Gitane ever employed Super Vitus tubing in the pro-peleton, the answer (to the best of my knowledge) would be no.

However, in 1990, the Belgian Histor-Sigma squad raced Vitus steel, aluminum and carbon framed Gitanes. The steel bikes were equipped with Vitus GTI, with internally ribbed, butted ends (a-la Columbus SLX), a follow on to the former Super Vitus 971-983 series. Vitus aluminum and Carbon framed Gitanes were, also, raced by the latter.

That is not to say that secondary, amateur or other teams did not race such velos as the 1983-84 Super Corsa (Super Vitus 971 and 983 respectively), 1987 TDF (Vitus Aluminum) or 1990 Team Replica (France Domestic; Vitus GTI), etc. bicycles.
Peter H.
Sacramento
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Vitus Tubing 
PostPosted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 2:04 pm Reply with quote
verktyg
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 2814
Location: SF Bay Area
Peter, thanks for the info on Gitane's Vitus tubing frames.

Wasn't there at least one year that the Gitane teams rode with all French components like Peugeot? I would have thought such bikes would have had Vitus tubing.

I have 3 bikes with Vitus tubing: an early 80s Andre Bertin C37bis Team bike with 971/980 tubing and all French components, my 1984 Super Corsa and a Motobecane with Vitus 172 tubing.

I built a number of frames with Durifort and Vitus 172 tubing back in the 1970s.

Chas.
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 9:19 am Reply with quote
Peter S. Horn
Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 144
Embarassed
Chas.,
The following is to the best of my knowledge only and, of course, subject to correction. back to the late 1950's forward, I recall the great Gitane teams, such as St. Raphael-Gitane, Ford-France (Anquetil, etc.), Gitane-Campagnolo (Van Impe), Gitane-Campagnolo, Renault, etc. (Hinault, Fignon, Lemond, et al), Systeme U, and Toshiba on Reynolds or Columbus frames, albeit with French Speidel components (plus Italy's Modolo Master Pro brakes) on the 1983 bikes.

I also recall (at least the earlier) Peugeot team bikes (PX-10, PY-10) being equipped with Reynolds 531 frames, with French (Simplex,
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 9:52 am Reply with quote
Peter S. Horn
Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 144

Chas.,
We , apparently, have typewriter problems. To contine: The Peugeot teams of the era raced Reynolds frames but were, otherwise, equipped with all French components.

However, the 1990 Belgian Histor-Sigma squad featured all Vitus GTI steel and Vitus carbon, Sachs-Huret equipped Gitanes, the only team that I am aware of to do so.
Peter H.
Sacramento
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Vitus Tubing 
PostPosted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 10:03 am Reply with quote
verktyg
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
Posts: 2814
Location: SF Bay Area
That's too bad. If Gitane or Peugeot had used some bikes made of Super Vitus in the pro racing circuit, maybe Ateliers de la Rive would have fared better.

Super Vitus was just as good as Reynolds 531 or Columbus SL tubing maybe better. Back in the mid 1970s there were (rumors) reports that several US frame builders had chainstay failures with Super Vitus tubing. I would fault the builders before the tubing.

I occasionally hang out at a local frame builder's shop. He mostly does repairs and restorations these days. He did all of the steel frame repair warranty work for the major Italian bike manufacturer before they switched to Asian sourcing, plastic bikes and eventually were bought out.

We were discussing cracked and broken chainstays and his experience confirmed my observations that there have been very few failures with 531 tubes except at the dropouts. Most chainstay failures that I've seen have been with Columbus SL tubing. I suspect that it may be that Chrome-Moly steel is more heat sensitive than the Manganese-Moly steel used in 531. Just a suspicion, no proof.

Chas.
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Bar Plugs...custom for your Gitane1 
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