dbakl

Is the bb on circa '72 Motobecanes French or Swiss? The new Le Champion has the orig bb, so not a problem but I need to find something for the similarly aged Grand Jubilee frame I have.

wahoonc

I am going to go out on a limb and say French, I don't think they went to the Swiss cups until around 1974 or so. But I would wait for a second opinion...

Aaron

rootboy 

I can only add mine is French. 72/73 TC. Can you try a cup from the Le Champ to see if it fits the GJ?

jonwvara 

I also guess that it's French. But I don't think there was much of a system to the way Motobecane did things in those days. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Swiss after all.

dbakl

That's a good idea... duh!

rootboy 

heh heh. That's the kind of thing I'm surprised I thought of.

gaucho777 

The fixed cup should be right-threaded if it's French and left-threaded if it's Swiss. It sounds like no BB is installed now. Can't you simply put your fingernail in the BB grooves and see which way you need to rotate to tighten, or even eye-ball the direction of the threads? Less risk of cross-threading if the cup is not the right threading. We can probably rule out Italian threading & ISO/English threading. If it's French, maybe consider a dual-adjustable cup setup to fine tune the chainline?

dbakl

Well, I have a French bb here and just won a Swiss one on ebay. Guess I'll wait until it arrives, then try the fixed cups from each. Should be immediately obvious without hurting anything...

I bought the Swiss because I thought the Moto might need it, but I have a Cilo coming up too. Maybe its Swiss (or French).

unworthy1

a '72 has got to be FR, they didn't migrate to Swiss until much later. Later than '74, I haven't seen one that needed a Swiss BB that wasn't at least a '78, but YRMV.

ColonelJLloyd 

+1

dbakl

Probably, but if I had a rim in 700 clincher 36 silver to sorta match a Mavic Module E2 I'd have a set of wheels for it after an hours work!

JohnDThompson 

Let's see some pictures of the fixed cup. There are often markings that allow one to determine the threading.

dbakl

OK, I don't have it apart yet...

verktyg 

I have two 1974 Grand Jubile bikes. They both started as bare frames so there's no mistake about the threading. One has a French BB, the other swiss.

Here's some pictures of one of them after I built it as a wet weather beater. It was a "dump bike" frame that went through a garbage compactor truck! ;-)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/2826722...7623992423353/

BTW, There were supposed to be a few bikes labeled Grand Jubilee that matched the Huret Jubilee derailleurs. The rest are just Jubiles.

Chas. verktyg

abarth

verktyg, how did you know they are 1974? Also do they both have Huret dropouts?

verktyg 

They both have Huret dropouts.

The 1973 Grand Jubile bikes had a cheap stamped steel fork crown plus some other frame differences. Some had Campy dropouts. In 1974 they switched to Wagner crowns with a chevron V on top.

Also in 1974 Reynolds changed decals and added a small gold block at the bottom with the Reynolds address inside.

When Moto switched from Huret Jubilee derailleurs to Suntour Cyclone derailleurs about the end of 1975 they also changed to Suntour dropouts.

Chas. verktyg

dbakl

Mine does. Fortunately the Jubilee derailler set I've been hoarding for decades is the Campagnolo version. It's a yellowish silver with red accents with the squarish shield plastic headbadge which I understand was 71-73. Fork has been replaced.

I have a bout with 2 Motos coming...

unworthy1

well I'm gob-smacked to learn they were going Swiss as early as '74, but just by 50% if your 2 GJs are representative.
I'd still bet a '72 would be French threading, but now anything's possible.
You'd never have known that GJ was ever in a garbage truck, nice job!

verktyg 

Well, that's not a good sample... ;-)

There weren't many Motobecanes in our town. As far back as 1974 we were aware that some of them had Swiss thread fixed cups.

Why Swiss? Several possibilities...

The first being component availability. During the bike boom French components were always in short supply. The bike makers used whatever they could get. I've seen a few GJs that came with TA Cyclotouriste cranks. That's why I used TA cranks on one of my GJs.

Another possibility, Motobecane and the two other big French bike makers, Gitane and Peugeot produced models for specific markets. They may have made bikes with Swiss fixed cups for some European markets. What parts were left over they used on bikes for the US market?

I have a 1974 Gitane Tour de France that came from Australia. It has metric diameter tubes but a British threaded BB and headset. Gitane didn't start using British threads until the late 70s.

We didn't sell Peugeots but we worked on a lot of them in the 70s. Some U-08s came with Swiss thread fixed cups. There was no way of telling except trial and error. If the fixed cup wouldn't come out we tried turning it the opposite direction.


I have a 1972 Le Champion that I got about 4 years ago. I haven't gone over it yet so I don't know what threads the fixed cup is.

Also I have two 1974 Le Champions that I bought as bare frames. One is French but I think that the other has a Swiss fixed cup. The seller sent me a Campy Swiss fixed cup with it. I have to check it out again.


It doesn't quite pass the 5 foot test, some of the worts show up... but it does pass the 10 foot test (at 10 feet it looks good, shinny components draw attention away from the touched up scratches).

Is it wrong... or just French!

Chas. verktyg

Captain Blight

French bikes are confusing. Motobecanes are the *most* confusing. And their records department was apparently drunk 24/7.

verktyg 

Here's a Bike World Magazine review of a Grand Jubile from May, 1974.

https://velo-pages.com/main.php?g2_it...geViewsIndex=1

I think that the bike is a 1973 model not a 74 as stated in the article.

I added the 1974, 75 and 76 Grand Jubilee catalog pages to my Flickr set.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/2826722...7623992423353/

For starters, the 1974 bikes had the 3 main tubes made of butted Reynolds 531. The 3 main tubes in the bike in the review are straight gage Reynolds 531.

Next, the stamped steel crown is chrome plated. The 1974 and later GJs had painted Wagner fork crowns. Last, the bike in the review had Campagnolo rear dropouts.

The 1974 and most 1975 GJs had Huret dropouts. The original GJs had the short arm Huret Jubilee derailleurs as shown in the 1974 Moto catalog. The 1975 catalog shows the long arm Jubilee derailleur. These were rather flimsy and were designed to handle a 13-28 freewheel with granny gears up front.

The 1975 catalog spec sheet lists Huret Jubilee or Suntour Cyclone GT derailleurs and Stronglight 49 or SR AX5 cranks with the Motobecane name on the arms. The bikes with Cyclone derailleurs used Suntour dropouts.

By 1975 the bike boom was over so delivery issues were no longer a problem. Motobecane probably switched to the Japanese components because of price.

The review calls the Grand Jubile a "touring" bike with 70° angles (which I think is wrong) and a short top tube. Both of my 74 GJs are 23" frames (58cm). They have identical geometry with 74° head and seat tube angles and 57cm top tubes. They are hardly touring frames.

I've only assembled one of the frames, the bike in my Flickr set. I built it as a wet weather beater bike. I had the frame and fork realigned by a local frame builder since it had gone through a garbage compactor truck.

The bike was a pleasant surprise to ride. It handles great, stable but responsive and the ride is smooth.

Chas. verktyg

dbakl

OK, the Grand Jubilee is French threaded. So is my Cilo, which oddly enough is actually Swiss. The Le Champion already has the bottom bracket in it, so I'll stick with that, whatever it is...

abarth

verktyg, thanks for the article. I don't think that GJ was a 74 either. By 74, Moto switched their headbadge to the circular M.

I have a 74-75 GJ with Huret dropouts. Here is interesting thing, mine has 57cm seat tube and 58cm top tube measured c to c, which I measured three times. I do not know the head and seat tube angles, but from looking at it the head tube is steeper than the seat tube and they are too agressive to be 70°.

I do agree the bike is surprisingly responsive, but I found the handling to be on the twitchy side at high speed.

I have pictures of 71-73 Moto catalogs. I will post them if anyone want them.

loose spoke

I think VeloBase.com could use scans of those years! The earliest he shows is '74. I'd love to see yours too.

https://www.velobase.com/Resource_Too...alogScans.aspx

-Tom

abarth

Here are the catalogs.