cegerer

This is pretty cool. Gios currently selling a traditional road bike. Looks like they've made some effort to keep a vintage look. $1200 on sale.

Vintage Gios

Cissell

Dang! Wished they had retained their traditional seat cluster treatment.

smd4

Pretty nice looking, and a great price. Too bad it doesn’t have lugs. 58 is the largest frame size. Huh.

Lamont Cobb

My guess (just a guess) is that it's no longer feasible to build with lugs - either the lugs are too hard to source, or they can't find experienced brazers, or both, without undue difficulty. Just a guess on my part, I'm not a frame builder.

smd4

Yeah, you’re probably right.

Trakhak

Beautiful. Eroica-ready, I guess, which is probably the point. Great price. Already sold out in my size.

himespau 

Couple inches too small for me, but it looks purdy enough (for something that lacks lugs and the coins in the forks anyway).

Trakhak

By the way, that's quite a bombshell to drop on us so casually!

cegerer

Shimano brake levers - didn't know Shimano still made a traditional lever! They've sourced a crankset from somewhere with a vintage look. Also, the downtube shifters Like I said, they've put some effort into this at a very reasonable price. Of course, it is only "Designed in Italy" according to the head badge, so who knows where it's made. But I don't really care. My size (the 52) sold out as well.

cegerer

P!N20

Funny how the seat post is shown either astronomically high or excruciatingly low.

Looks good though - Raleigh, take note.

TenGrainBread 

I'll never understand these "retro" new production bikes when you can get the real deal, made in Italy, with lugs, that this one is a poor imitation of, for 1/3 the price, by simply buying vintage...Even if you buy an old one that needs work and need to pay a mechanic, will still come out much cheaper than $1200...

P!N20

I hear you and I imagine most people on here would concur, but I imagine these are aimed at people that want a retro bike out of the box with modern gear ratios, etc. (Although it's hard to tell what the gearing actually is, but the image shows a fairly decent sized low gear.)

Freewheel - 16T...er, OK. So it's a single speed then?

Chainwheel - SOLID 246T-F-1 44T L170mm...so 246T big ring and 44T small ring?

Trakhak

I imagine that the high saddle picture was meant to make the bike look a bit like a current race bike saddle height---and the lower seat height was done simply to make the saddle visible in the closeup of the seat cluster.

Trakhak

I imagine that these will sell out fairly quickly, with most going to European purchasers, who might be a bit less persnickety than us old and crotchety U.S. C&V guys.

repechage

was unclear if index or not, I will assume freehub, 10? 11 cogs? Dual pivot brakes, no brand cited. Specs are less than forthcoming, like what are the chainring sizes?
no matter, at the discount price, good enough.
needs gumwall tires.

I did find it interesting, with the freedom of any angles, no lugs… the frame design is pretty conservative compared to the Gios of the late 70’s or 80’s.
‘those bikes had shorter top tubes than paired with the seat tube lengths noted here. Steeper head angles and a bit more fork rake.
BB drop is not noted here, I tried to walk the dimensions back around, but there is something off, the numbers did not yield a confident result.

I looked at the modern CF frame also, it was even more “conservative” not bad, just a departure, actually I think the geometry on the CF bike will be like my 1972 Lejeune, save a shorter rear triangle. A bike I like very much.

Gios migrated to shorter and steeper from 1973 or so to 1978-1985, frames I have examples of. They did share a low bottom bracket, 75mm of drop or close to.
‘I expect here to have 70mm or so.

Trakhak

If anyone is considering one, take a look at the geometry specs. In particular, the seat tube length is indicated as "C-T" in the geometry table, but the diagram shows it as being measured center to center.

Luckily, the top tube length is shown as center to center in both and the head tube length is provided. Plus, they indicate the standover height, and the bike clearly has a horizontal top tube.

No BB height/drop or wheelbase indicated, though.

cb400bill

I'd love to ride one.

Spoonrobot 

GIOS still offers a lugged bike with Columbus tubing, C&V frameset but complete has modern integrated shifting: 2024 Catalog



Most of these tig'd modern downtube shifter classic & vintage-inspired bikes appear to be price point catalog bikes. Other brands have offered similar and it's not clear if the brand picks the bike out of a catalog, outside firm approaches with offer to build and spec or what.

"4130 CR-MO SPECIAL TUBING FOR GIOS" is meh, why bother?

Trakhak

You can zoom in on the picture of the complete bike. Looks as if the shifter is switchable friction/index. Can't imagine why else it would have that bulky-looking black plastic fitting.

I snipped most of your post, but the info you provided was very interesting. When I worked in a bike store in New Haven in 1974, we took a red Lejeune racing bike in on trade that I sold to my soon-to-be girlfriend. Beautiful bike (and girlfriend). I wonder why Lejeune never developed much of a presence in the U.S.

repechage

USA importers who were diffused, attention split between importing and retailing, making enough without the expense of whole bike inventory carrying costs and warehouse space needed.
exchange rate arbitrage was more risky back then. Often, to place an order, a deposit that covered the costs of materials and components was required, bikes paid for before they went on the boat.

and Italian bike sexiness. I liked the aesthetic they employed, but Masi and Colnago they were not.

embankmentlb

I am generally not a fan of retro re issue bikes. Raleigh did that with their red, black & yellow team frames years ago. The new frames may have been high quality but the details were poor at best. Kind of a mockery of the original.
I kind of like this Gios. It being a lower price point makes it honest. It does look. Cool!!

cegerer

Agreed! I just think it is so cool that they are doing this and that there is an apparent market for it.

Trakhak

The bolded text above must refer to the Gios, since Lejeune was in France, of course.

Coincidentally, last night my friend Linda made the mistake of showing interest in my mention of the weird history of sales of domestic and foreign bikes in the U.S. since the 1950's. By the time I was approaching the punchline of my lecture (i.e., the U.S. bike market evolved from the toy industry, bike dealers went from stocking about four bike models in one size and one color in the '50's to having to warehouse increasingly complex bikes in increasing ranges of sizes and colors while still having the same miserable profit margin, and yet the toy industry managed to increase their margins over the years while selling stuff unassembled in boxes), poor Linda was near tears, begging me to stop: "My head is spinning!" (Genuine quote from her; pun absolutely not intended.)

Luckily for Linda, I know almost nothing about the importer part of the business. I'll study your post above so that I can entertain her further.

By the way, I did a quick search in case my memory that Lejeune bikes were from France was faulty and happened on a site that is new to me: Classic Factory Lightweights.

cegerer

Of course the problem with a genuine vintage bike is finding one in the right size, in the right condition, with the right components, in the right color at the right time. This Vintage Blue? Just check the box and Buy It Now