Gonzobuster

Fellow bike nerds,

I have an odd observation to share (and to discuss). In every other „tech“-related niche, it’s (or seems?) possible to identify products or gadgets from the past with the help of the internet. Old catalogs and similar digitized sources seem to be available, even for handwritten books 😉

That does not seem to be the case for vintage bikes even from the 1980s.

How come?
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bikemig 

Some catalogues are available online but many or not. I wish bike forums would start a sticky so that users could upload their catalogues.

Gonzobuster

Thanks. I wish there were any Motobecane catalogs available ...

bikemig 

Motobecane catalogs for the US market are available, velobase has a lot of catalogs. It wouldn’t surprise if some are available in French as well.

https://labibleduvelocataloguesmotobecane.blogspot.com/

P!N20

'72 - '85?

bulgier.net - /pics/bike/catalogs/Motobecane/

Gonzobuster

That’s great, thanks 😊

Now I know mine must be younger than that. Narrowing it down.

It must be younger than from 1986 then, thanks again

The Golden Boy 

Maybe this also a part of why old Treks are popular- all the catalogs from the good ol days are online thanks to Skip and Vintage Trek.

Gonzobuster

Thanks, now I know my bike must be from 1987 or even later years.

P.S.: I am not French 😉

bikemig 

I wasn’t guessing your nationality.

motobecane Is French is and so it would not surprise me that there are good resources about the brand in French.

Thats certainly true for Peugeot and for Follis for example.

rustystrings61 

In addition to the aforementioned bulgier.net catalog trove, there are SO many more vintage bike resources available now than there were 20 years ago. I remember being on the old iBOB newslist (which has since gone through multiple hosts and is currently on Google Groups), when that was about it. It was cool to be invited to join the then-new Classic Rendezvous list which has grown by leaps and bounds. When I stumbled onto this forum a few years back, this included more of the less-exotic, more proletarian bikes of a wider range and completed what I was seeking. Just ask and there are so many people who will be glad to share information.Oh, and about not being French? Google chrome will translate French pages for you. For a REALLY cool time, go trawl Vélo Vintage A Gogo - Portail and when prompted, choose English. There are French guys who geek out over vintage bikes just as much as we do, and they say pretty much the same things, mais en Francais. All kinds of cool stuff, as I found when I went searching for information about the Liberia bicycles built in Grenoble. They had the catalogs, because to my knowledge there were NEVER any English language Liberia catalogs.

T-Mar

One of the problems with identifying old bicycles is that they far more likely to altered from OEM configuration than other "tech" products. Repaints and replacement parts are common and most of the frame building parts are standard items. Very few used proprietary parts. In the 1980s their was trend by larger and high end manufacturers to emboss logos on frames but outside of that, it can be difficult.

One of the most reliable tools for identifying an old bicycle is the serial number, which can tell you the manufacturer and date. The serial number formats have been publicized for many of the larger brands such as Raleigh, Schwinn and Trek. A substantial number of the Asian manufacturers, who manufactured a significant number of 1970s and 1980s bicycles under their own and other companies brands, have also been identified, had their serial number formats decoded and cross-referenced to the brands which they manufactured.

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...ber-guide.html

3alarmer 

.
...my go to source for component ID has always been Disraeli Gears for derailleurs, and VeloBase.com for most everything else.
They have a bunch of catalogs on VeloBase, and started up a "frames and whole bikes" section not all that long ago.

VeloBase.com - Catalog Scans

I have to agree that I find the online resources so much more plentiful now that I have no complaints.
Disraeli Gears has a wonderful section that gives printable original instructions for many of the derailleurs listed. Thanks for that.

Charles Wahl

I believe that Motobécane ceased making "serious" racing/touring bicycles in France after 1984 -- look at the marked difference between the 1984 and 1985 catalogs and the lack of any after 1985. The name was bought by some other firm that began production elsewhere, probably somewhere in Asia.

himespau 

​​​​​​​Pictures of your bike posted here might help.

T-Mar

While Dirsraeli Gears is an excellent resource, a rear derailleur is last component that I'd use for identifying or dating a bicycle as, in my personal experience, it the one likely to have been replaced (consumables excepted).

Gonzobuster

Indeed, I was wondering why I can’t find any Motobecane catalogs from 1986 onwards. So there aren’t any? Wow ...

Gonzobuster

Sorry, I didn’t wanna spam this generic thread. Here you are:

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...preciated.html

rustystrings61 

Yeah, it was really, really sad. The whole French bike industry just kept shrinking and shrinking away. Motobecane started showing up as a badge on Asian-produced bikes some time this century - like maybe 2005 or so? I started seeing them on bikesdirect and the big auction site as people began bringing them into the country. I don't recall seeing ANYONE selling them in brick and mortar shops - they've been a direct to consumer bike since they returned, or so it seems to me.

Can you post some pix, or maybe post them to a gallery so someone can do a pic assist? What model do you have? Components? Lugged or internally brazed?

CliffordK

There is a lot of information about the big brands like Motobecane, Peugeot, Raleigh, Schwinn, etc.

The problem becomes more apparent when one tries to identify a bike from a small builder, or identify rebadged department store bikes.

Even for a company like Colnago, there is a lot of information about their mainstream bikes, but it takes more hunting for some of their spinoffs, sometimes rebadged for others.

himespau 

Yeah, that definitely looks post sale to me.

Trakhak

When Motobecane Became MBK

CliffordK

For identification, perhaps it isn't the catalogs that one needs, but rather to have someone build timelines. Somewhat like has been done with the Colnago Super. So someone can sit down and quickly scan through the details to identify an approximate date.

Often I'm sitting struggling to try to figure out salient details to differentiate something like new Campagnolo 9s components vs old Campagnolo 9s components.

With many more modern bikes there are paint scheme details that help identify them, but these also need to be documented, and perhaps one could note differences to look for.

Google searches are great, but they use a fuzzy search algorithm so one searches for one brand, and photos for another brand pop up.

It would be a massive database to build, and would require a lot of input from diverse people.

Gonzobuster

Here you go:


I have uploaded more pictures in this thread:
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...preciated.html

Gonzobuster

The decals made me wonder. The design seems still oldschool.

himespau 

I'm partially basing that on the decals (font screams late 80's or after - I can't really read the tubing decals) and shimano groupset (could have been added later) that looks post 1984. Are the tubing diameters french (if memory serves Peugeot transitioned over to the diameters everyone else was using the mid-80's, if these are asian-built, I would expect these to be too)? It definitely looks to be a higher class of bike (and older) than the current Bikes Direct incarnation of Motobecane. Did someone else own them between the mid-80's and when BD took over in the early 00's?