Old 08-04-20, 11:26 AM
  #17  
rustystrings61 
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Greenwood SC USA
Posts: 2,252

Bikes: 2002 Mercian Vincitore, 1982 Mercian Colorado, 1976 Puch Royal X, 1973 Raleigh Competition, 1971 Gitane Tour de France and others

Mentioned: 55 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 823 Post(s)
Liked 1,396 Times in 694 Posts
Congratulations! For no good reason at all, I still keep my eyes open for a 60 cm Gitane Interclub from before the Huret honeycomb dropouts era at a price I can stand. I'm intrigued by the geometry and the knowledge that they're not name brand tubing, but not quite gaspipe either. I keep hoping I will score one - then I will grapple with running it with fourth-tier kit and tubulars or converting to fixed.

FWIW, my clunker challenge bike a couple of years back was also in the category of French, not-quite-gaspipe, not-a-name-brand-tubing bike with zippier than usual angles, an old Liberia. I still need to put some better tires on that bike, it rides ridiculously well for what was a $100 campus bike in 1972. If I ran tubulars on it, it would be almost as cool as your Interclub ... almost.

Also, FWIW, the geometry of these is pretty close to the geometry of the Tour de France model. For several years now, my battered '71 Gitane TdF fixed-gear conversion has gotten the lion's share of my mileage, eclipsing a whole bunch of other very lovely bikes with nice rides. Gitanes, especially this geometry around 60 cm, are special. Period.

Last edited by rustystrings61; 08-04-20 at 11:30 AM.
rustystrings61 is offline  
Likes For rustystrings61: