Senior Ryder 00 

Hi folks,



I’m trying to determine the quality “hierarchy” of vintage French bicycles, primarily Gitanes, Motobecanes & Peugeots. A bit of research indicates the top level Motos and Pugs are well made and essentially the same quality with Gitane being slightly lower. However, I’m only interested in the “mid range” models since the co-op where I volunteer is getting lot of donations of these. Recently, we’ve received a couple of Gitanes, a few Motobecanes and several Peugeots. Many are in very good condition. Most have cottered cranks which I assume means French threading. The staff is reluctant to work on them because of the threading and unique parts.



French bikes seem to be popular in this area and move quickly off Craig’s list. Last summer I sold a refurbished and upgraded Peugeot Mixte in a week. Rather than these being stripped, crushed and the metal recycled, I’d like to keep them on the road. I get consumables for wholesale and used parts very cheap. I can acquire, rebuild and do minor upgrades for <$100. When the weather warms up, the market price will be ~$200. I can get used 27” alloy wheels for $10 a pair, but a major issue is dealing with the bottom brackets. Is it possible to use a threadless bottom bracket cartridge? What do you think? Am I taking on too much?



Thanks and regards,



Van

Chombi1 

I think Gitane actually edged out Peugeot and Motobecane a bit in the early to mid 80's with their mid and top level bikes. They stepped up the build quality of their bikes when the Gitane/Renault team was winning the big races in the continent to take advantage of the great marketing they were getting from their success. Peugeots were actually quite crude around that time. I know cause I had look through a lot of dealer inventory before I found Peugeots with acceptable build quality so I can buy them.

3alarmer 

...you can't sell French bikes at co-op prices using threadless bottom brackets, nor are there any reasonable alternatives cheaper than the 50 bucks they charge for the Velo Orange ones. The good news is that on most of the bikes you'll see at the co-op, that are in good enough cosmetic condition for you to want to refurbish and resell, they probably won't need to be replaced. And anyway if you go to a sealed unit, you'll need to put a different crank on the ones with cottered cranks, which is counterproductive.

So just count on servicing them with fresh grease and maybe new bearings (which are cheap in bulk). You definitely need a cotter press, and you need to source some French diameter cotters in quantity. You'll probably ruin a few of them at first. Don't try to pull the fixed cup unless there's something wrong with it, and try to convince someone there to buy the Hozan fixed cup tool. When you do get French bikes that are too beat to save and resell, pull all the parts and save them in a special, separate place clearly labeled "French Standard Parts". If you don't do this, you might as well throw them away.

Otherwise, good luck. IMO, for 70's bikes, Motobecane had the best fit and finish, and Peugeot probably the worst overall. By the time the 80's rolled around, it's kind of a tossup.

Those are the ones commonly encountered, but marques like Stella and some others that are less common were often better bicycles. But every manufacturer had a hierarchy, so it's impossible to say this or that Moto is better than this or that Gitane or this or that Peugeot.

Sometime in the 80's, most of the BB threading went to standard threading for many French bikes. But you won't see many cottered cranks on those.

Kabuki12

I have a mid level Stella that has cottered cranks and although I would love to put square taper alloy cranks on it , I am leaving it alone. The bike , in my observation , is very well made and rides great. I did re-lace the wheels Using the original flange Campy hubs to Wienman alloy wheels with butted SS spokes. I even left the original matchbox style front derailleur and the bike rides wonderfully. I loan it to my shorter friends who want to ride with me. It has an Ideal saddle that is very comfy. Everyone that has ridden it loves it. Joe. joesvintageroadbikes.wordpress

dedhed

If you do scrap bikes the things to save are anything French threaded or sized.
Stems, seatposts, headsets, forks, pedals, bottom brackets and cups

John E

True. The value to storage area ratio for small parts can be huge. I have happily reused bottom bracket lockrings and pedal dust caps salvaged from broken frames.

Fortunately, I built my UO-8 from a bare frame when I worked at a Peugeot/Nishiki dealership in the early 1970s, and it has always had cotterless cranks. About 20 years later I converted another UO-8 to cotterless, when Sugino French-thread cups were still pretty available and inexpensive.

63rickert

Exactly what is the problem you are having with bottom brackets? In my experience on a 70s French the BB is one of the best parts of the bike. I am not dealing with them in bulk and maybe there is some local issue for you.

If you are seeing them just plain worn out you need a source of replacement parts. For the spindle the difference between the diameter of a French and English spindle is so small it disappears in manufacturing tolerances. So any cottered spindle works if the races are spaced correctly. Then you need cups. Yes the threading is different, other than that interchangeability between brands is near total. Regardless of the label they all came from same foundry and they wanted interchangeability, unlike current practice where proprietary runs amok.

There are cups and brackets in France. Go to ebay.fr. Search velos > composants pieces de velo > boitier de pedalier. Then start contacting vendors. Look for vendors with high volume sales. They all have stocks of parts they don't list. Not much point in listing every pair of cups sitting in back when they sell real real slow and everybody else in France has a large supply for cheap. Shipping is high, if you buy a dozen it is easier. And while you are there figure out what other pieces you are going to need. A few of the things you will want are scarce and high even in France. Most of them are dirt cheap.

Most of those you might contact are functional in English. All of them are bike crazy. They will be happy to talk to someone interested in preserving a piece of French heritage.

big chainring 

I usually just swap out the cottered BB spindle for a square taper one, and use the original BB cups. Chainlines might not be perfect, but good enough. Another option is to seek out older cottered cranks, pre 70's. Their quality is much better. Stronglight cottered cranks from the 60's are really quite nice.

BFisher

Yeah, I have to say that among the French bikes I've come across, which is admittedly not a huge sample, the bottom brackets were all in good shape. Maybe I was lucky?

I used to think I had to replace cottered cranksets with square tapered units in order to really enjoy the bicycle. I no longer think this way, and my next bike will keep it's cottered crankset. They are beautiful, perfectly functional, and I'm not winning any races on any of my bikes. The weight is really no big deal. Of course, that is just one opinion.

French bike aversion by the masses keeps these wonderful old bicycles available for those in the know.

63rickert

One other tip for searching French ebay. Go to left column on first page and scroll down to 'Provenance'. Click on 'France uniquement'. Just looked at the current BB page and if you view all listings it is swamped by Velo Orange.

And if you are buying a dozen at a time disregard pricing entirely. This stuff is cheap. The character calling himself mamiebrock at the end of the listings who has the hollow cottered spindles trades under a dozen names, once sold me a bike for 200 that had maybe 300 worth of small parts in the box as packing material and to give me a sample of what he can provide.

JohnDThompson 

The metric threads on these bikes are only an issue if you have to source replacement parts. If they're still in usable condition, there's no reason to take them out of service simply because of the metric thread.

Bikes in poor condition can serve as parts donors for bikes in better condition. Cottered cranks can often be replaced by cotterless cranks simply by replacing the spindle and retaining the metric thread cups. And replacing a metric thread fork with an ISO thread fork will allow an ISO thread headset to be used.

dddd

Firstly I would always go with 3alarmer's advice and leave the cottered units in place unless there is damage!

Grease can be literally sprayed into the bottom bracket using an aerosol Lithium Grease with an applicator tube.

Dripping in ten drops of oil from each end of the bottom bracket is also a great way to get the lower-tier bikes back on the road working right.

Almost all of these setups can have the bearings adjusted externally without crankarm removal.

The original French bb cups tend to stay tight for the life of the bicycle, so leave it alone.

You will damage the original, hardened cotters if you try pounding or pressing them out cold.

Heating the crank end to the point of "smoking out some of the lubricant" will be needed to remove most cotters without damage. So I never go at an original cottered crank assembly without my propane torch!

Replacement cotters these days are almost all made of too-soft metal for good service, they will effectively waller out along their flats and require frequent re-visits to keep things tight.

Installing cotters should be done by alternating between striking the head of the cotter and tightening the nut. When the nut stops wanting to turn any further after another blow to the opposite end, only then the cotter is "guttentight".

It will be good to hone your skills at truing chainrings and even restoring the pants-protecting discs that many of these cottered cranks have. I use a wooden dowel (cut from a broom handle) with a 2-pound hammer to do most of my chainring aligning, usually striking the chainring bolt heads/nuts from one side or another. Less often, I will need to bend a chainring directly using a 12" adjustable wrench.

Cheap French road bikes tend to work really well when given a bit of properly-applied TLC. "Blips" in the rims causing brake surge can often be set right by squeezing in dents on both sides of the rim using a big plumber's plier with a toe strap protecting the metal surfaces. Original cable housings can often be restored by simply nipping off the bit on the lever-end of the housing that is bent. Use extreme caution when even thinking about "checking" the clamping bolt tightness on any (brittle) plastic front derailers, and make doubly sure that the hub bearings aren't adjusted even the slightest bit tight.

Getting these bikes sold at a workable "profit" means inspecting the bikes carefully before buying them (for any need of too much work).

You're quite lucky to be able to buy any rear wheels in good condition at co-ops, this item is most prized as there is an acute shortage of rear wheels among charity shops which rely on donations to maintain their parts stocks. Many bikes get parted or discarded mainly for want of a usable rear wheel, as typically the rear wheel will be a bike's first major component to become unserviceable.

repechage

old Japanese Sugino and or SR spindles often work in French bottom bracket cups- as noted, keep track of the bearing spacing- replacement being too narrow would be the problem.
If a complete Sugino Maxi crank was found swapping the whole thing should be an easy exchange, and just retain the French Cups.

French bikes that had 3 tubes Reynolds or in the case of Stella, Columbus should go at the top of the heap to refurbish. Forgot Vitus 172 tubes also.
if I was considering reworking a French mid level bike- my top of the list replacement item would be the plastic bodied front mechanism. I have had those break just while the bike hung in storage.
as there was mention of swapping out wheels- those replacements would no doubt have English or ISO freewheel threading. Steer clear of transferring a French threaded freewheel to those.
Clean up those found and sell them on eBay- there is a Market for French thread freewheels. ( much less so for hubs )

francophile 

Not much to add here, other than dissolving the suggestion that "cottered crank = French thread". It's simply not the case. With Peugeot, at least, it could be Swiss or French thread, and without knowing what to look for to figure out which is which, you may find a hard time if you ever need to remove the fixed cup (which you shouldn't need to do unless its races are pitted to hell). The cups alone, if unpitted, will fetch $20 on eBay. I actually just bought some Swiss-thread cups last month for $13/shipped which was a steal, cup and spindle races are in pretty good shape.

That said, if you intend to work on these bikes, while I can agree it's possible to service the bottom end w/o removing anything, there's something to be said for getting a proper cotter press, removing and servicing the bottom-end fully, then moving along. Although some would argue they're not higher-end bikes and they're built like tanks, I'm more in the camp of fully cleaning, lubing, reassembling. You can make a lot of gains for safety and weight shedding in other places, like swapping the steel 27" wheels out for alloys, which it sounds like you can get cheaper than pie.

I don't expect anyone to be able to source or secure a VAR 07 press that makes replacing cotters a 30-60 second process (tops, if you're slow), but you can get one of the BikeSmith style presses for much cheaper at the expense of it taking 3-4 minutes per side + per action (remove or install) once you get the hang of it. Care needs to be exercised on removal as explained above especially if they haven't been removed in a few decades. Once you bend the threaded end, you're now stuck drilling, and a 3-4 minute per side process just turned into 20 minutes of drilling.

Ultimately, value is in the eye of the beholder.

dedhed

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...ter-press.html

BFisher

Thank you for posting this link!

I'd read through it before, but forgot about it.

randyjawa 

I have owned quite a few French bicycles, over the years. The best one to come my way has, absolutely, to be the Motobecane Grand Record...


The next best French bike to come my way has to be the early seventies Peugeot PX10...



I have never owned a Mercier that blew my kilt up. In fact, I think that they are poorly made machines, but I have never owned a high end model.

Gitanes, once again, do little to impress me and I have owned some of the top dogs. That said, I would trade my left testicle, OK I am married, both testicles, for a Gitane Super Olympic in my size...



The Peugeot UO8 is nothing special but it is a worthy machine that rides well and has that wonderful vintage look...

Salamandrine 

I'll pile on here and say replacing bottom brackets is ridiculous. Why?? If the issue is cottered cranks, it might be unfamiliar but it isn't rocket science. Do get yourself a cotter press and some metric and BSC cotter pins. Learn how to use them. Hammers don't really work. Time for the staff to figure it out.

Best and most economical approach is to not replace anything except consumables. For the BB, repack and replace bearings. Bike boom bikes have seldom been ridden enough to wear out anything.

AFA the hierarchy really the main thing is the level of model within a particular brand's line, not the brand. That said, I'd put Motobecane far ahead of Peugeot in terms of fit and finish. Peugeot could be downright agricultural. Gitane in general was in between, IMO.

3alarmer 

...if you have to do it on a tight budget, you can also press out cotters using a drill press vise or even a bench vise, with a wrench socket as the negative space for receiving the non threaded end of the cotter. I have used a lot of different tools over the years both personally and at our co-op here, including one of the old Park ones, a cheap drill press vise from Home Depot, the $16 homemade one, and my current Bikesmith tool. There's even a guy downtown here, Addison, who has one of those ginormous VAR presses. For the money, that Bikesmith cotter press is pretty nice, works well on almost all cotters (sometimes the clearance is a little tight between the drive side rings and the press).

And the torch advice is the way to go, unless there's some rule at your co-op against using them, because they're fearful of injury or someone who doesn't know what he's doing grabbing it and burning the place to the ground. Home Depot here sells a MAPP gas torch and the gas cylinders reasonably. They get hotter than a standard propane torch, so you can solder copper plumbing pipe with lead free solder more quickly and easily. they're easy to use, but in a co-op environment the use ought to be restricted to people with prior experience with them.

ryansu

The $60 or so $$ I paid for a bike smith cotter press was well worth it. Read up, do a few rebuilds and you should be fine with rebuilding bikes with cottered cranks. If that still intimidates you then by about the mid 80s Peugeots had mostly standardized on regular metric sizing and of course 3 piece cranks a review of bike boom Peugeot should inform of the different models years paint decal etc. Also both Sheldon Brown and Mytenspeeds by the BF member above (RandyJawa) have informative sections on French Bikes.

Bon Chance Mon Ami!


My 78 MotoGT

A UO-10 (Course) that I refurbed and sold

A mid 70s Gitane TdF that I parted out

manuandorra

One famous French brand was TVT (Technique du Verre Tissé). First factory to manufacture carbon frame.
Used by the most famous rider in 80s : LeMond, Delgado, Indurain, etc...

dddd

Thanks, 3alarmer, for the renewed emphasis on heating the crank end before trying to remove cotters.

In my experience, the torch is more important than the pressing method (I think I've used them all).

I find drilling them pretty easy with the right selection of sharp drill bits and good "aim", but waaaay better not to sacrifice the precious, original cotters!!!!!!!!

francophile 

Could be worth stressing a couple of points since we're talking torch. One, you're heating the crank arm versus the cotter (not sure if that was clear at this point). Two, not all cottered cranksets are steel, and I wouldn't employ a torch on an alloy crankset, magnet-test to make sure it sticks before lighting the torch.

Save and re-use is king, but the only consistent success I've had getting re-usable cotters was by employing a proper cantilever/bypass press (like the VAR 07 or this one benzo1 has up on eBay right now at an exorbitant price) and applying heat if they didn't pop out easily on the first push with a high-leverage tool like that. Any other method and (bench vice, BFH, clamp press, etc) and you're asking for bent or mushroomed cotters/threads, torch or no torch. I haven't had to buy more cotters since I bought my VAR press. 4 out of 5 times I can re-use what's there.

Still, I'll tell you and anyone else here, if you ever need 9mm cotters specifically, the old classic milled-face ones, not the crappy new-fangled ones with the pressed or poured wedge/round-edged garbage, give me a shout!

I've sent more than two dozen pairs out to other BF'ers on my own dime since I finally broke down and went from lurker to member. The "PM me your cotters" bit under my username is technically a joke, one I wish someone would've taken seriously and helped me re-up my supply , but I *do* still have a small stockpile of 9mm cotters you'd need to file a hair to get perfect depending on what they're going on. No 9.5mm though. I think I have some of the newer pressed/cast ones but they seem to be inferior quality.

And that said, if anyone has milled-face cotters to sell of any size in bulk, like the ones on the left here, don't hesitate to 'PM me your cotters', I'll pay for the ride. I've been handing out cotters to folks on here for years on my dime and will continue to do some as long as I have a couple dozen around for my own needs.

crank_addict

To the OP and 'mid-level' French bikes. Watch for steel Vitus 888 tubing and decent dropouts. Set them up with a classic tubular wheelset and experience a GREAT ride. Should add, make it mandatory to suit up with tubulars. With creative scouting, can build sleeper quick and in near new condition for less than a $150.

If you have access to lots of French bikes, you should have an eye towards the finer components. Don't let such parts get away such as Mafac centerpulls, CLB sidepulls, TA and Stronglight chainsets, etc..

There's no mystery to the mass produced French bikes.

Ps. Keep me on the list for a Perache 017 saddle.

Senior Ryder 00 

WOW! Thanks for all of the great info. It gives me a lot of hope for successfully re-homing these bikes whether or not there is a lot of profit. Much of negativity or misinformation about French bikes came from the staff at the co-op. They get so many donations that are easier to refurb or repair and get on the sales floor that the French bikes, unfortunately, go on the back burner. I don't have a lot of space, but may try to talk the management into letting me do one as a "home project" over the holidays. Sure beats refurbing children's bikes for their holiday gifting programs.

Thanks again. Cheers,
Van