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Kirk

I have a Tour de France that I believe is a '70 or thereabouts. I'm getting ready to paint it and I see in the catalog that black was an available Gitane color in 1970. Did they ever produce any black TdF's? I'm not attempting a perfectly accurate restoration, but I'd like to use a color that the factory actually used. I feel like black or white are my only choices because the other colors would be difficult to match.

Michael Swantak of velographicdecals.com will be making the decals from my originals, so he'll have them in stock for anyone that needs them.

Dave

sandranian · Site Admin

I have never seen a black Gitane Tour de France. I am not sure the model was ever made in black...but just because I haven't seen it doesn't mean it didn't exist!

The color chart on the 1970 catalogue is not the best thing to go off of. The colors on that chart are really off. The "black" that I am familiar with on Gitanes is slightly metallic, and really comes off as almost a brownish/purple in bright light. That color is on my 1983 Track bike ("Kilo"), and not on a 1970 bicycle.

I always thought that the orange color of the 70's Gitanes was really neat looking, and it was pretty plain (no metallic flecking, and a pretty standard orange, if there is a "standard orange").

Keep in mind also that Tour de France models had gold "piping" or highlighting around the lugs, which was very sloppily done (by a drunken Frenchman or something), and could easily done with a small bottle of gold paint and a hobbyists paintbrush. Open a bottle of wine and apply after you have the frame painted....

IHeartMyBike

Hey thanks for the velographicdecals.com info. I've been looking to find someone who will recreate my original Gitane decals so I can strip my frame. He seems really reasonably priced.