Classic & Vintage - Gazelle Tour de L'Avenir... need info...

Hey Kids,

My neighbor recently came across an older Gazelle Tour de L'Avenir at a thrift store. He bought it for $5, mainly because he liked the stem than came on it. I showed some interest in it, and he offered it to me for free. It needs a little work, and some cleaning up, but the frame looks to be in good shape.

Here's the thing... I can't find ANY info online about Gazelles, other than they are Dutch. I was trying to figure out the age of it, and where it placed in the Hierarchy of Gazelle bikes from that year. It has a Cottered Crank, and mostly Simplex components on it (except the mid range Shimano SIS RD someone put on it).

The Serial# is 2731492

Anyone know of a registry, or really any info on Gazelles?

Here are some pictures... I took the Cranks and bottom bracket off.. they cleaned up nicely.

Hi SP,

you give me the links of the dutch pages, i will give you a translation.

Gazelle is a common brand here and the amount of gazelles of the race era here (60s-80s) is overwhelming.

Agreed that there is very very little on the web (English anyways) about Gazelles. Best would be to let some of our Dutch members like leunkstar above lend what help they can. I'm the proud owner of an early 80's Gazelle Champion and since then have heard of only a few models on the boards - none of which have been the model you mention.

Agreed that there is very very little on the web (English anyways) about Gazelles. Best would be to let some of our Dutch members like leunkstar above lend what help they can. I'm the proud owner of an early 80's Gazelle Champion and since then have heard of only a few models on the boards - none of which have been the model you mention.

I saw your thread on your gazelle... good looking bike... I'm guessig mine is a bit older.. maybe early/mid-70's? The Simplex stuff on it is interesting... the FD has a weird pulling mechanism, almost backwards from the conventional type I'm used to on more modern bikes.

Maybe this weekend, I can get some pics of it, and post up... I'm sure it's probably fairly low-middle end of the Gazelle line, but who knows.

Thanks

Jeff

You should be able to get component dates from the stem, crank arms, or hubs. How about a picture?

Hey Kids,

My neighbor recently came across an older Gazelle Tour de L'Avenir at a thrift store. He bought it for $5, mainly because he liked the stem than came on it. I showed some interest in it, and he offered it to me for free. It needs a little work, and some cleaning up, but the frame looks to be in good shape.

Here's the thing... I can't find ANY info online about Gazelles, other than they are Dutch. I was trying to figure out the age of it, and where it placed in the Hierarchy of Gazelle bikes from that year. It has a Cottered Crank, and mostly Simplex components on it (except the mid range Shimano SIS RD someone put on it).

The Serial# is 2731492

Anyone know of a registry, or really any info on Gazelles?

Jeff



Your bike is probably from the early 70s. Some Champion Mondials from 76 have passed through my hands, their framenumbers started with 31. I'm pretty sure the numbering system includes all bikes prduced by Gazelle, so that's why the numbers are really big. You could also try the formula in the graph (thanks to Herbert Kuner, www.rijwiel.net).

The Tour de l'Avenir is comparable to the Tour de France of mswantak, maybe one notch lower. Hi-ten frame tubing?

You should be able to get component dates from the stem, crank arms, or hubs. How about a picture?


Thanks... I'm hoping to get some pics this weekend... just gotta bug my neighbor, since the frame is in his garage.

Jeff

s70rguy - thanks for the graph and the (rather complicated) math function to determine year. I'm going to have to check mine this weekend when I get her out again for a ride. :)

I did some googling but besides a huge amount of ebay like sites no info at all. You can mail gazelle (info@gazelle.nl) and ask them politely om more info. They mailed me instantly an amazing scan of a 1989 prospect of my Gazelle MTB as PDF.

Here is some english info on the brand: http://www.cycle-heaven.co.uk/gazelle.html

bump

I have the same bike with seirial number starting 260****. My dad baught it in San Diego around 1971. in 1981, we modified it for me for biking between 2 high schools (7 miles apart) I was going too at the same time. I just took it out of storage today (1-30-2010) and toad 20 miles on it. I WD-40ed it before I toad but I will send it in for a tune up this week.

Here are 2 photos I took.

There's lots of useful info on The Royal Dutch Gazelle company and bikes here: http://fivenineclimber.com/bikes/gazelle/gazelle_pages.htm. Also, while researching specs and history for my late 80's Gazelle Champion Mondial, I read somewhere that it's AB frame geometry is based on the Gazelle Tour De L'Avenir from the 70's.

Regarding serial numbers on Gazelle Champion Mondial, there is some production year guidelines here - http://fivenineclimber.com/bikes/gazelle/misc/serial_numbers.htm
(http://fivenineclimber.com/bikes/gazelle/misc/serial_numbers.htm)

There's lots of useful info on The Royal Dutch Gazelle company and bikes here: http://fivenineclimber.com/bikes/gazelle/gazelle_pages.htm. Also, while researching specs and history for my late 80's Gazelle Champion Mondial, I read somewhere that it's AB frame geometry is based on the Gazelle Tour De L'Avenir from the 70's.

Regarding serial numbers on Gazelle Champion Mondial, there is some production year guidelines here - http://fivenineclimber.com/bikes/gazelle/misc/serial_numbers.htm
(http://fivenineclimber.com/bikes/gazelle/misc/serial_numbers.htm)

You may have read it somewhere, but its not correct. Champion Mondial geometry was derived from the first racing frames Gazelle built, after they took over the frame workshop (the people that worked there rather) of Lokomotief. From there Gazelle developed and more or less standardized the geometry for their racing frames (the frames built in the special products workshop). I have a small booklet somewhere that gives all the specifics for the different frame models (A-frame, AB-frame, etc.) as used by he workshop.
This info is straight from the supervisor of he Gazelle workshop at that time.

This looks simular to my bike. My dad bought his gazelle in 1971 brand new. I still have this bike but my dad and I made changes in 1981 to convert it from the original 10 speed to 18 speed. He wanted it to be 21 speed but the rear would not spread enough to accomodaite 7 sprokets. We changed the seat and wheels as well.