Le Gitane

Let me start this particular installment off with the fact that I am a sucker, a total quivering mass of denial with weak self control. Now that that has been cleared up let me introduce you to my Gitane, the ultimate townie. This project started as a 20 dollar craiglist frame find that came primed and with those amazing 70s Gitane era Huret dropouts. This was too be a joint project with my special lady friend (see the Vitus blog), a painter of note, and my self. She was going to paint the frame and we were going to build up a rather simple bike for the purposes of selling it and she was going to learn to make bike along the way. Well....somewhere along the way the Gitane became MY bike and she got to install a front brake, with entirely too much supervision from me (see opening statement).

The first nails in this coffin were those damn dropouts. I mean look at them! I couldn't just let that derailleur hangar  dangle there all alone on some single speeded let down of a bike. Those drop outs deserved a derailleur, not just so they could serve their purpose but also so any would be passerby's eye would be drawn thither and they could be admired. So a build philosophy began to take shape; I decided to make at least a 1x9 out of this bike as a buddy had left a 700c sized 9-speed wheelset with the intructions to get rid of them. Perfect! Oh...wait a minute, this is a mid 70s frame made for 27" wheels and 700c wheels just look lame on 27" frames. Time to do some ciphering. What if I could find a threaded 700c fork that looked kinda cool and put that on, thus maybe taking some of the dork factor of the smaller wheels in the bigger frame away? It would also steepen the front end and shorten the wheelbase a smidge, making things a bit more exciting in the handling department. Might work. Off to my super secret interweb source of ever cheap bike parts where I located a 20 dollar set of Schwinn forks in raw aluminum. Success! But wait, Gitanes are French, Schwinns are not. How might I fuse the Gaul with the Asian? (No, Schwinns of this era are no longer made in the USA). It was tricky, but I was trickier. By combining the cups and races of a French headset with the screwy parts of a standard headset I made it all work. Whew.

   With that obstacle out of the way it was time to start thinking about a color. The grey of the primer actually looked nice with the raw aluminum fork so I decided on a bit darker shade of grey for the final coat. The free wheels were black so grey and black was looking pretty sessy. Maybe some white acootermaw to offset it all and Bob's your uncle. We chose a single stage paint from NAPA and I rigged a janky rack to hang the frame from in the back yard by using a ladder, some square tube and basketball goal. My special ladyfriend did her amazing magic on the thing. We had orginally gotten some black paint to outline the lugs but decided that it would be too gauche and would look better kept simple. It was about here that I knew I wasn't gonna sell this thing.

Next came the parts bin shuffle and the interwebs deal making that is my forte when it comes to piecing together my vintage abherrations. I obsconded a set of unused Ofmega cranks from another project to be featured here later, the super secret interwebs source yeilded me stinky white tires, a proper French sized kalloy seatpost, some cheapy MTB bars and a stem. I was well under way when a few more unseen obstacles reared.

The first had to do with that old 700c in a 27" wheeled frame problem. See, my clever fork trick led to a brake reach disparity. The front wanted short reach and the back wanted long reach. Ugh. The thing was really starting to look perty so I didn't want to be all ghetto with the brakes. I pored over secret tomes of knowledge and discovered a brake of the same manufacture that came in both reaches. This particular brake, a Tektro model I believe, was even sufficiently high tech enough looking to satisfy my evolving aesthetic for this bike; a blend of old and new tech, mountain, city, BMX and road. Problem was I could find one reach in black and one reach in silver, not both in the same color. So I had to justify it somehow. My solution was to splash some more black in the color motif and hope no one would notice.

The next obstacle may seem trivial but it was killing me. These old frames did not come with brazed on cable guides, that in itself was just dandy, kept things simple, but it was gonna need some sort of bolt on cable guidage and the obstacle was in finding a single rather than paired guide set. I told you that I am sucker and now you are seeing just how sucked in I get. It just wouldn't do to have that orphaned front derailleur cable guide on the down tube for all to see, not to mention the other orphaned guide that would be on the seat tube down by the bottom bracket. I would not be able to bear answering the inane queries, "Uh..but what's that for?". Oh it was killing me, I was loosing sleep. But once again my super secret interwebs bike parts source came through for me and I was saved by a perfect NOS set of old Suntour SINGLE guides. I almost sacrificed a puppy I was so elated. 

  

The making began and things were looking nice. The dreaded chrome Pista seat was used for build up purposes only and never intended to live there. Some black Primo pedals and white ODI Longnecks, a Rapidfire shifter and 600 rear changer, a 110 50 toofer, cable it all up and POOF! There it is! My first test ride had me grinning wide. It jumps curbs, does wheelies, hauls major ass and looks damn good. And that front fork experiment did exactly what I hoped, quite lively indeed. I know I was supposed to sell this bike, but I am sucker and I have a problem. A making bike problem. Oh well.

Kase's Bottechia

Never has there been a more appropriately named person than my buddy Kase. The guy is a total case. The sort of dude that could make a porn star blush uncomfortably. He's not quite a hipster but he certainly has the tendency. he would never be able to pull off hipsterism though because he's just too damn loud and irreverant. I like irreverant. If there is one quality I cherish in a soul above all others it is irreverance. When he came to me about making him a bike I had nothing. All my stashed frames are for my size of a person and as you can tell from looking at the pics, he has pretty short legs. He wanted a fixie. You know, the new thing, a tarck bike that he could hit the bar with and have some style, but something that you don't see everyday. He gave me free reign, which was a good thing for like I said, I had nothing. So clean slate.

    Now of course he wanted things relatively cheap but completely unique, he threw out a couple of modern brand names at me, stuff I had heard of but didn't really know much about. I told him to kick back and let me see what I could I find.

   What I found was a late 60s Bottechia frame and fork in the appropriate short legged size. We got it for what I considered quite cheap, less than a third of what modern mass produced fixie frame would cost. It was old so it had the horizontal dropouts we would need to get the chain tension right.  It even came with a Gipiemme headset. It was a start.
   A forty plus year old frame has it's own baggage to contend with though. The seat tube up by the clamp area was very badly mangled. Most likely from someone jamming whatever seatpost they could find in there and wrenching it down gorilla style. It took a few trips to various parts bins and some very patient "reverse mangling" to find a seatpost that sorta fit. The poor seat tube wasn't just squished too tightly but had been rendered unround as well. But in the end I got something to work, as long as he doesn't change his seat height too often.
   The ancient headset cleaned up fairly well and before long I had a frame and fork in my stand and unified. Next up was finding componetry. The fact that this was gonna be a tarck bike made that somewhat easier but modern Shimano 600 poo just wasn't gonna cut it on this frame. That'd be like putting raver pants on your Grandpa. I had to find some properly aged junk for this thing. Once again fortune smiled and via my super secret interwebs source I found an entire Campagnolo Gran Sport gruppo (including pedals!) from the Bronze Age that needed quite a bit of love before it would be recognizable as such, and for cheap too. Of course chainring choices on these old three arm cranks are nil so I would have to stick with the meaty 52 toofer, but coupled with the proper rear cog (18 or 19t) it should be just fine. Besides that big ole' ring would make my buddy Kase look like a manly stomper as he tooled barward.

The next challenge was wheels. These old frames were made for 27" wheels while most of what is readily available today is of the 700c variety, a smaller diameter overall. Now many an old codger has modernized his ancient frame with 700c wheels, it can be done, but it just looks like you took Grandpa out of the raver pants and stuck him back in some navel perched Bermuda shorts replete with fanny pack and some white socks and sandals. It may work, it may even be comfortable, but it is still wrong. So back to my super secret interweb source and presto, 27" wheels brand spanking new laced to some sorta modern but classicishishish looking hubs, hipster friendly flip/flopper in the back. On with the some cheapy tires and Fubar hipster "double" toe straps and I was almost done.

Cockpit accoutrement next. I threatened to use the old chrome and black vinyl seat that I yanked off my Bianchi Pista the day I bought it along with some high rise Stingray bars, But Kase would have been just fine with that so the humor would have been lost, besides I had taken great pains so far to not make Grandpa look foolish so proper bars and saddle were a must. I must confess a weakness for distressed old Brooks saddles and after digging through my pile and forcing Kase to sign his first born over to Bob I offerd up a properly withered old saddle of the appropriate age. And Origin 8's Major Taylor bars wrapped in some leatherish fit the bill nicely. I cleaned up an old Weineman and dug through my pile for a BMX lever to add some front brakishness and we had a bike! BTW, I always put front brakes on fixed gear bikes, it just plain makes sense, especially for someone who has never even pedaled a fixie in their life. Speaking of that it was about this time ole' Kase started getting the heebies about that very fact and thought maybe he should go with a freewheel and a rear brake. I heckled him good and pure, and to be honest I was done with this old Grandpa and quite pleased with how it turned out, so I told Kase to go ride the thing a while and if he's not hooked I'll gladly make it into faux hipster bike for him. He rode it around the block, shook his head a few times, put it on the bike rack on the back of his Saab in a defiant act of true hipsterism and drove away. I changed my phone number that day.

The Vitus

   This is a very special bike. Most of you out there in interweb land that have been into bikes and breathing for at least 35 years should know what a Vitus is. Back in the day riders would use these frames for the climbing stages in the Tour. They would put the stickers of whatever manufacturer they rode for on 'em, stomp the snot out of 'em and then toss 'em. I remember in particular a picture of Pedro Delgado hammering his way skyward on very pretty anodized red one of these babies, replete with Pinarello badges and stickerways. Wonder what old Giovanni thought of that.
   For those of you that don't know what you're looking at, this is a very early Vitus 979 frame, the earliest one I have ever seen in fact. Ateliers de la Rive was an old French tubing manufacturer that got its start in the 30s. In the 70s or so they teamed up with Bador amd CLB-Anginieux to make these quite revolutionary frames. These were known as the Duralinox range of tubing and frames, the first "succesful" use aluminum tubing and gluing or bonding to

be used in bicycle racing. The frames were extremely lightweight and forgiving on the bumps and pave. Sean Kelly rode Vitus frames to much success throughout his profesional carreer. Many people complained about durability and the flexiness of these frames back in the day, but for a lightweight rider that had that ever disappearing skill of "form" they were an awesome choice. I remember the first time I rode one things weren't so rosy, having neither lightness or form I tore the bottom bracket out of the poor thing in a field sprint. Quite a glorious end to borrowed bike. Sorry buddy.

   This particular Vitus frame found its way to me by way of Switzerland and I had a particular person in mind for it when I got it. Now before you go thinking I am some moneyed globe trotter that has the ability to chase down cycling's rarities regardless of geographical locale, remember that we live in the interwebs now and in the interwebs there is this magical place called Ebay. That is where I found this baby and scored it for a mere 80 bucks. Yup. 80 bucks. Cost almost that much to ship it here. But look at the thing! Ain't it perty?

   I have never seen a raw, clear anodized Vitus before. Most of the ones I have seen stateside have main tubes anodized some color and the sticker graphics are completely different. Around the time I found this frame I had made a new ladyfriend that professed to me her love of road riding. Upon visiting her home I found her prized road bike to be a too big Schwinn Continental that was around her same age and over half her weight. This particular ladyfriend has long struggled with back problems and lugging that Schwinn probably didn't help. So who better to have a nice chatter absorbing piece of bicycling history? And maybe even now with a proper road bike she could learn to shift and stuff. Her form was amazing, both on and off the bike, she deserved better than an old anchor three sizes too big for her. On top of this she loved the idea of vintage mechanical stuff. So the build began.

   Old Mavic SSC parts would have been perfect for this bike, but I didn't have any of that stuff, at least not a whole gruppo. But I did have piles of old Campy stuff from the era so Campy it was. I also located a nice set of Campy Super Record hubs with GP4 Mavic sew-up rims already laced up for a lightweight rider. Campy brakes never worked well so I used my faves from the era, Modolo. And I put some of those maginificent old Bullseye pulleys in a Campy Nuovo record derailleur that I rebuilt to get the shifting done. The front changer is a Super Record, in keeping with the '80s roadie tradition; Nuovo rear changers were tougher and shifted better, or at least they were a bit cheaper. I even managed to find a vintage NOS ladies Avocet Touring saddle. The frame is French, so finding the appropriate headset and bottom bracket proved to be fun. Velo Orange supplied the bottom bracket, a concession to modernity. I highly recommend them. The goal was to build a bike that would have been at the top of its heap in the day. I think it turned out quite nice and it gets plenty of gawks from the geezers.

  

By the way, before you start thinking I make super rare bikes and just give them away to any beautiful ladyfriend that rides, this particular ladyfriend is my gal.

Dragged Into It

   I have never "blogged". Never really even considered it. Never really even read blogs either.  I make bikes. Pretty much for no reason, or for any reason. Whatever. I have always made bikes. As a result I have entirely too many bikes lying around at any given time. More than I can ride. But I can't just let a neat old frame or box of parts go to waste, so I make a bike. Sometimes for friends. Sometimes for myself. But most of the time for the hell of it. People have always told me that others out there in interwebs land might be interested in the bikes I make, that maybe even a stranger might want me to one day make them a bike, which could allow me to further justify my parts and frame hoarding. So after much prodding I have started a blog about bikes I make out of stuff I find,  for the availability and possible enjoyment of those who might give a shit.

  Pictured are three of the bikes I have made recently, just to pique your interest. Now when I say I "make" bikes what I mean to say is that I "assemble" bikes. Though I would love to make my own frames and components, I have not gotten to that point in my "making". One day, maybe. I plan to post a blog about each of the bikes I have made and bothered to keep a record of, which is a small percentage of the total amount of bikes I have built, but this new digital age has made keeping a record much easier so I will promise to do so for any future bikes I make and share them here. But for now you get the bikes I have made over the last year or so.

   When I was a kid I made mostly BMX bikes, like before there were BMX bikes. My dad would weld gussets and crossbars in Western Flyers and other department store poo, I would pirate parts from cast off junk, strip coaster brakes to make  them spin better, put ten-speed seats on the pile of junk, don an old motorcycle helmet and go jump shit. Usually they broke. I did eventually graduate to real BMX bikes. I am quite ashamed to say that the first decent quality frame I ever had I stole from a neighbor kid. It was a Raleigh/ Rampar and he didn't know or care what it was but I knew it to be the steed of one Toby Henderson, one of my childhood idols of BMX. I am sure a special place in bike hell awaits me for my crime. I have tried to make amends by making bikes and giving them away any chance I get, but there is no forgiveness for a bike thief. The fact that I was obsessed with bikes and the neighbor kid rode it about once a month and just tossed it wherever is no excuse. I painted it flat black, it looked damn cool with its yellow number plate. But I had my mom try and sell it in a garage sale, the guilt of knowing where it came from haunted me so. I am horrible. I did eventually mail order a PK Ripper frame and built it with Z-rims and various "quality" parts of the day.
  At the same time that I was obsessing over popping one-footed tabletops off of curbs I discovered "ten-speeds" later to be known as "road bikes". See, not only was I obsessed with making bikes, but riding them was rather important to me as well. And my favorite thing to do was to use my bike to ride to other neighborhoods, towns even, where the kids had no idea who I was. I did this plenty on my janky BMX bikes but "ten-speeds" seem to legitamize and make this feat exotic . My first decent "ten-speed" was a John Deere. Yup, they made bikes, or at least they put stickers on bikes, look it up. The thing was French actually. For someone who routinely disassembles everything let me tell you that my first foray into the mind of a Frenchman was a little confusing. But I rode the crap out of that bike, and the little window of the world that was ten minutes of Tour de France footage on the Wide World of Sports back then inspired me to greatness, or at least to further distances on my bike.
   One thing led to another and off to college I went (and left, and went back, and left...) with a Fuji "ten-speed" (hereafter known as road bikes because I am presumably grows up by now) and several criterium wins to my name. Of course I went work in a bike shop and built bikes for customers in between assembling poo out of the box for the floor. A few of my custom creations sold, but most were just overpriced dream machines that sat, except when I would ride them at lunch. I was particularly proud of an orange SE Quadangle I built up with all black parts, including black graphite Tuff wheels. It never sold. I maintained my bike identity shizophrenia by training and racing hard on my road bikes while doing freestyle and breaking stuff as often as I could. Then came mountain bikes.
   I was slow to get into the MTB thing. It made sense, being a hardcore BMX freestyle rider and a 300+ mile a week roadie, but everytime I got on a MTB it broke. Remember that first Cannondale?  With the 24 inch back wheel?  Broke it. And those old dorky Stumpjumpers that were really just beefed up old lady bikes? Broke that too. Eventually technology caught up, but I still broke a ton of Stumpjumper frames, usually from jumping them. But the one thing MTBing did for me was gave me an outlet to vent all of my bikeness, and I got to build lots of bikes because I broke them so often. Throughout all this I gradually drifted away from racing and just rode, and built, and dug jumps. Racing became a fashion, not as fun. It used to just be other bike dweebs dotted with a few rich elitist asswipes here and there, but eventually asswiping prevailed and it became more about the gack and the pricetag and the image. Now don't get me wrong, I realize I am generalizing, but that is what one has to deal with most of the time; the general. The dirt jumps and the trails became more my haven for my style of riding. And don't think I gave up being competietive, I will chase you down and blast right by you in a hot second. But I do it in an unorganized sort of way now, without a number pinned to my ass.
   There's 30 or 40+ years of my bike history for you in a nutshell. Just so you know where I am coming from. The one thing that has always remained is that I make bikes. I have my own prejudices about what is cool or worthwhile. I have watched a bunch of trends and dead ends happen in the world of bikes since my first one in 1972 or so. Like I think the the best road bikes are the old Colombus and Reynolds tubed creations of the 70s through the mid 90s. But modern mountain bikes are far superior, as are modern BMX bikes and components. But for the road or tarck gimme that old non-indexed Italian or French stuff. So I track down the orphans, the cast off old racer junk. It used to be cheap and easy. Racers, being the fashion conscious elitists that they are, would practically give me their old Italian frames and Campy parts, but then the tarck bike hipster revolution began and goatied hip-hugger sporting guys and gals began allowing themselves to be raped for this old iron in order to display their cred. So I have had to get more creative on my accumulating, for I have knowledge. I was there. I know what I am looking at and if it looks good I snatch it quick. I have yet to jump on the bandwagon of raping hipsters' bank accounts for mid-quality junk that happens to have the appropriate stickers (have you seen what some of them will pay for a Mexican built Benotto?) but maybe I should. I would rather build bikes for people that live them, that ride the shit out of them, for myself. But I will always make bikes, I will always rescue old parts and frames when I find them. So here is a blog about the bikes I make. Each one will get its own blog so stay tuned.

-evilfirbolg