eldercycling

Hi All. This is my first post in one of the legitimate threads so be gentle with me. I have gotten obsessed with fixing older road bikes, and Motobecanes in particular. The obsession with Motobecanes is purely arbitrary: a few months back i got an old Mirage for free that was in rough shape and fixed it up. It is now my daily rider and I love it! One thing I did with it, that I am curious to hear what people think about, is I replaced the old cottered cranks and spindle with a modern GxP style bottom bracket and SRAM crankset. The bottom bracket I got from a company that specifically makes a modern bottom bracket for old French bikes that have Swiss threads (a subtle and very consequential little fact that caused a few rounds of trial and error and seemed to be unknown to even professional mechanics).

My question is: is it considered in poor taste to put modern parts on an old bike? The question is one that I am really pondering over because I made the (perhaps very bad) decision to buy a few more Motobecane frames that are in very good shape, and they were not that expensive. This time they are the Super Mirage model and just the framesets so I will have to build them up and the question before me is: do I try my best to find old parts that are likely original to the bike, or make something that is bit of a franken-bike with new parts? I am pretty familiar with the parts that were used on these bikes as I have already restored two Mirages, my daily rider and another that I got cheap off craigs list that only needed TLC. So it would be a lot of suntour deraileurs and friction shifters with weinnam center pull brake calipers. I also really like the idea of making some very pretty and ridable bikes but that have new parts.

Ultimately I will sell the completed bikes and need to make my money back but I am not interested in making much of a profit if any. I really just sell the bikes I work on to get more that need work, and I really like the thought of making an old bike that other people have given up on a second life and more miles underneath it.

Thanks,

T