MikeTé

M. Hutsebaut was a cycle shop owner just north of Paris. He was also a frame builder. His son Pierre grew up in the shop, learned the industry from his dad. He emigrated to Canada in 1968 and became involved with coaching, managing and administering the sport of cycling at a national level and is still active in Montreal. He brought a few of these bikes over to Canada, during his early years here, to use with the teams he worked with.

I've had this frameset for about 4 years now and have slowly acquired the French components. I'll be taking it down to Bromont next week for trial ride.

Wilfred Laurier

When I was in high school, my coach had two bikes - Hutsebaut mountain bike and a Lovell road bike.

MikeTé

This is almost all French (not sure where the rims are from, and the spokes are DT. The fork is not original; French threading, tho'); all Rubis tubing, Philippe bars and stem, Atax seatpost, Ideale saddle, TA Specialites crankset on Stronglight BB and Maillard track hubs. NOS Wolber tubies.

MikeTé

I measure my lap times with the hour hand

MikeTé

A Lovell; so rare, very cool.

b dub 

Yummy:

gaucho777 

What a handsome bike! The wood rims look great with the navy paint. I like the embellished font decals as well. Thanks for sharing!

Are those bars meant for road or track? The seem to have a fairly stretched out bend, making me wonder how much your forearms will contact the top bend in a full-out sprint.

icepick_trotsky 

The Professionnel was the road model Phillippe.

MikeTé

I asked Mr. Hutsebaut himself (Pierre, le fils) by email a couple of weeks ago and he replied, said he never imagined that he'd see one of those frames again. He told me about having brought them back to Canada after a visit home. Indeed they were built in his father's shop, said that the metallic blue was the usual colour. A lady was charged with hand-painting the name on the downtubes.

gaucho777 

Hand-painted letters, you say? Very nice!

79pmooney

Thanks for showing us that bike! Are those lugs Nervex? They look Nervex-like but stretched a al Prugnat. Being post 1968, I can imagine Nervex adopting to the current trend.

Ben

MikeTé

Peak Centre Montreal - Pierre Hutsebaut

Camilo

Cool Bike.

Were wooden rims common and/or preferred in 1960? If so, why and were there certain applications (i.e. track vs. road, etc.) for which they were preferred?

When did people stop using wooden rims?

MikeTé

I'm sure that the real answer is that wooden rims were far more common before the 2nd World War (think 30s; Mavic's first patent for alu rims was 30s), tho' they would still have been seen more commonly in the 40s and 50s than later, of course, mostly due to the "usual" holdouts (there are always holdouts and retro-grouches in every era...). Thinking about this build, since I actually suspect that the frame was built in the 50s (the Rubis tubing, the hand-painting in a pro shop, finished with a shellac, I think...)(this IS the original paint), I rationalized that the overall build would just look nice with the wooden rims. A retro-holdout, I guess.
I look forward to any info that those who really know can bring forward.

MikeTé

You can see the brush strokes in the paint. Before putting some bar tape on the top tube, I cleaned the spot with a bit of rubbing alcohol. The spot lost its shine and a bit of blue came off; that's what made me think of shellac or another alcohol-soluble top coat.

Camilo

Oh, for some reason I thought the bike was all or mostly original. Regardless, I think the wooden rims look great and are a nice touch.

mikemowbz

Fantastic.

Love the script on the DT. Hand-painted?

I believe I've seen only one (or two?) Hutsebaut-badged frames *ever*; I recall one catching my eye at Critical Mass in Montréal perhaps 6-8 years ago, before I moved west.

I am very pleased to see your post and to be reminded of this uncommon marque.

clubman 

It's interesting that many french marques offered a range of fixed/track bikes. LeJeune, Jeuet, and others all had intermediate priced single speeds with less aggressive geometry that maybe filled that long tradition of early season pro-rider fixed wheel training. So many other companies made performance pista bikes only.

Lascauxcaveman 

I want to ride that thing.

MikeTé

The Hutsebaut finally made it home to the velodrome, after an absence of 40 (plus?) years. It rode just fine, happy on the banks, rode straight and true. Full circle.

Giacomo 1 

Great to see this beautiful bike back where she belongs, on the track!

caista

what an absolute beauty! i love the watch as well. congratulations a such a great looking bike

Oldpeddaller

+1!