Here is our mid-80's (I think) Motobecane Interclub. It's parked at Horsetail Falls, which is along the route of the 2019 Gorge Pedal, an annual organized ride in the Columbia Gorge.
At this point, there's not a lot of the bike that's original. It was in rough shape when we bought it from a community bike center, but there wasn't any major rust on the frame. The soft surfaces were all rotting and its bar-end shifters didn't speak to me. I tore it down to paint it, and I modernized what I could and refreshed the rest. I made a "frankencrank" by matching up a more modern 3X right side crank assembly from another community bike center. I retapped the pedal holes on the remaining French arms so I could use non-French pedals. With the paint stripped off, I found a fissure in the steel on one of the forks. It looked like a manufacturing defect that had been there from the beginning, but you can't unsee something like that. I found a sturdy threadless fork and a modern headset that surprisingly fit the head tube.
Since the time of this photo, I've replaced the rear wheel so I could use an 8-speed wide range cassette, and I swapped out the thumbies for RapidFire shifters. I also undid one of my earlier experiments in pursuit of stopping power: I removed the second rear caliper and the brake doubler, and I added Kool-Stop e-bike brake pads to the remaining caliper. Stops great now. I've got a set of drops with combo brake-shifters that I might try in the near future, and I came across a metalflake green paint that I may not be able to resist. We're still having fun with it and it fits us, so we don't have immediate plans to replace it with something newer. It fits into the back of my pickup for nearby rides, and we haul it around the country on the back of our travel trailer.
