Thursday, January 30, 2014

Gitane Cycles (Ca. 1970's?) Refurbishment and Tips -- Before Picture

Here's a before picture of my first Gitane (Second French Bicycle):

     As you can see Gitane decal is a little scratched, there's some scratches on the top tube from riders mounting/dismounting and some scratches on the fork.

Gitane Cycles (Ca. 1970's?) . Gitane is French for "Gypsy woman" : )
It will require quite a bit of refurbishment. Will post post-repair picture when I complete the job.

     All in all, shouldn't take me more than a couple weeks to repair then it's on to the next project. In the interim though, I guess I could do some research on Gitane. Thanks to the Sheldon Brown website, it's come to my attention that my derailleur is a Suntour Spirt. (Not to be confused with the Spirit or Sprint). It turns out this is a pretty special derailleur, when you press the lever forward the gears actually shift into a higher gear(Opposite your normal Derailleur). According to the Sheldon Brown site that derailler came out in 1966, that puts my Gitane somewhere in the late 1960's range or later.