Bjenkins

Hello All,

I've been meaning to introduce myself to the forum but up until now have felt absolutely too ignorant to even be relevant. I'll do the intro next. I've already asked a couple of questions of the group and gotten great info, now I have another:

A few months ago I rediscovered Motobecanes. I hadn't owned one since college in 1977 (a white Mirage). All this started when I was looking through Ebay and saw a beautiful 1977 Grand Jubilé. I fell in love all over again, bought it, and had it shipped to Dallas from California. I've since cleaned it up, learned and rebuilt all of the systems (which were in great shape to begin with) and now I'm a fat old dude trying not to fall off.

Next, in the course of devouring all knowledge Motobecane, I came across (no pun intended) the orange Team Champion. Love became lust, and I scoured Ebay and Craig's List daily for four months. Nothing. Then a couple of frames. Then, out of the blue, a beautiful 1976 Champion Team in Montreal that I snatched up so fast my keyboard experienced a red shift. It felt like a Ferrari barn find! Bike Flights got it here intact, and now I'm setting out to publish a blog on the upcoming restoration. The hubs, rims and seat aren't correct, but everything else is. I'll go to the intro section next and post some photos and a little more about myself, but for now I've got a question. Is there any prevailing opinion on the orange paint color?

I'm sure this will ignite a whole other debate about whether to repaint, but the paint is thin in places, damaged in others, and the frame deserves a correct repaint. (A friend of mine who is an experienced restorer suggested powder coating, but that doesn't feel right to me). If necessary, I'll learn to shoot it and do it myself since I'm a ridiculous perfectionist, but I need to know where to start with the orange. I've got two or three colors on the frame because of sun fade (this bike has been well-loved but well-used). Or maybe someone can suggest a great paint shop who would respect the historic nature of the bike. I'm in Dallas.

Thanks for any info, and here are a couple of shots of the Grand Jubilé and the Champion Team. Sorry, I tried to upload some inline photos but kept getting an Alert message with no other info. Tried smaller file size or as attachment, still didn't work. I've posted attachments to the group before.

Thanks,
Brian Jenkins