Aurorabucky

So question.

I'm rebuilding a French bike. Nervar steerer. Have a 3TTT Record Strada stem and handlebars with decals from 1970, and assumed they wouldn't fit said steerer. Beautiful, hot-blooded, and they even fly the Italian colors in the decals.

Purchased a forged Philippe Competition stem married to a Philippe Professionnel because I felt like sanding down said 3TTT jewels invited the wrath of the gods. Engraved, French, elegant.

Last night, I go and just for giggles see if the 3TTT stem fits the steerer...AND THE D@MN THING FIT. A little on the tight side, but perfectly reasonable effort.

Soooooo... Which would you choose? Exquisite, light, stiff Italian job on a French bike, or go pure Francophile with another good combo.

For background, as far as I can tell, the bike is a Mercier 300. I'm gracing it with a Huret drivetrain (Jubilee), Normandy hubs, Ideale saddle, Stronglight cranks and BB, MAFAC.....French. All French.



Extra Credit: I also have a third dark horse, a polished Philippe Milremo Grand Sport stem, but it needs 25mm bars. Should I find some nice 60's Professionnels, that becomes attractive too.

juvela

Good to read this project is coming forward.

Steerer is Nervor, not Nervar. Nervar is the brand name employed by Etablissements Peyrard for their chainset lineup. No connection afaik.

Before going with the 3TTT I would want to measure both steerer and stem with a vernier caliper just to verify their respective sizes.

Tip: I have encountered Nervor metric steerers with an oversize i.d. such that a metric stem would flop around in them. This does not mean they were made to accept a 22.2 stem - just poor q.c.

Philippe also made stems with a 25.4 clamp size.

Hope we get some additional imagery as build progresses.

Local note: Seattle bicycle collector Nelson Miller is an architect and he designed your public library there in Langley.

Aurorabucky

Hey, thanks for the sage advice along the way. It's coming together. The frame comes out of powder coating today in fact.

Will write more later....

verktyg 

The bike is probably a Gitane. The steerer is a Nervor not a Nervex. Gitane used butted Nervor steerer tubes on most of their bikes from the 1960's throughout most of the 1970's.

The forged Phillipe stems were some of the most beautiful ones made. They didn't become readily available until 1975 or 1976. Those stems came with Phillipe, Peugeot or Motobecane logos embedded in the sides.



The classic 3TTT Record Strada stems have a classic look and were more period correct for bikes during the bike boom - 1970-1974.




As a side note, French/Metric stems were 21.9mm not 22.0mm - you can't fit a 22.0mm stem into a 22.0mm steerer!

Many stems are slightly undersized. The bores on many steerers are slightly oversize.

Most of the inch size Nitto stems marked 22.2mm that I've measured are actually 22.1mm and they'll fit into many French steerers.


Just one more thing...



1. I recommend filing a slight chamfer inside the bore of the steerer to remove any burrs so the stem slides in easy.

2. Clean out all of the olde gunk inside the steerer.

3. Use a brush hone or sand paper to smooth out the bore.

4. Put a small glop of grease inside the steerer and some on the stem (do the same with seat tubes - there's no excuse for stuck stems and seatposts).

5. do not tighten the top lock nut on the headset until the stem is adjusted and tightened.

verktyg

Chas.

Aurorabucky

VERKTYG!!! YESSS!!! Juvela and I have been waiting for you to find this discussion.

First for reference, here was the original thread on the frame.
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...d-frame-2.html

And here is a link to a flickr account with photos: all the latest stuff is this project.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/77325624@N00/

So to summarize my line of reasoning......

I'm not you, but I came to the same conclusion on the fork: I believe the FORK is from a Gitane TdF, butted Nervor steerer, scalloped fork ends into simplex dropouts. Nervex Du Bois crown lug and the wider, straighter Reynolds fork blades??

The FRAME is a different matter and it has a story behind it that I'll never know. I've come to the conclusion that it's a post-purchace-MODIFIED Mercier 300 for the following reasons. I've been super curious to see if you thought they held water or if I'm barking up the wrong tree.
- First off, French. Assuming the previous owner(s) didn't do it, has makers filing marks, French BB, Simplex forged dropouts, and until it was filed off, had a Simplex derailleur mount. Seamed head tube.
- Reynolds 531 butted tubing (found the engraving). 19/22 top and downtubes with 21/24 seat tube. Frame is 57cm(ish).
- Bocama Professional medium-point lugs complete with happy BCMs
- It has one braze-on, a rear derailleur cable stop, which the Gitane lacks.
- The top of the seatstays look different than any Gitanes I've been able to get photos of. They don't protrude up far enough.
- The brazing of the stays to the Simplex dropouts are inconsistent with Gitanes I've seen. Mine globed and then are filed to points.
- The head tube angle according to the lug is 75. All the Gitane Tdf geometry I've found suggests 73?
- IF you've seen the photos, I'd bet the big attention-getter was incidentely the clue that pointed me to Mercier. There is a big M cutout in the BB. Not a Masi M, nor any cutout I've been able to find, though I'm no expert. Everyone who has looked at it is pretty sure it was a later modification. But the M matches the font of a Mercier M. There is also the "m" shape filed into the seat tube lug. Someone got awfully excited about M.....

At this point, admitting that the net is all I can go off of, but spending more time looking stuff up than is healthy, I've looked at Motobecanes, LeJeunes, Gitanes, Bertins, etc, and I can't find any make that has the combination of seatstay tops, the specific brazeon, the pointed dropout brazings, and geometry other than a Mercier. Admittedly, I can't find any info on their choice of Reynolds gauge for a medium-large frame.

Naturally this leads me to conclude that something happened to the original fork. Possibly something violent. The frame was poorly painted - not original paint, not even primered, so as I stripped it, I really got to give the whole thing a lot of attention looking for cracks, buckling, wrinkles, bending, gaps in the lugs, etc, etc, and other than one dropout being slightly tweaked, darned if I could find anything. On the advice of some of the folks on here, I did file the corners of the M to have a distinct radius and inspected the cutout for cracks.

BTW, please forgive my neurosis. I'm an engineer.

And Juvela, I think fate made my handlebar decision for me. I was shining up the Philippe bars, and they have some dents underneath. The universal suggestion seems to say they just became a wall ornament. On my 3TTT bars though, the STEM is 3TTT, and the bars have the decal, but no engraving, and not much center reinforcement. I found one pista bar online that is similar, but nothing on velobase that looks like those bars. Think they're just some bars that got a restoration decal?

Either way, I get to contact an ebay seller now.....

And on the library, all I can say is it's a small small world.



In other news, the frame is back from powder coat.

juvela

Verktyg wrote -

"The steerer is a Nervor not a Nervex."

Lettuce not drag Francolam into this, it is already more than confusing enough!

Aurorabucky -

wrt your tecno tubo torino manubari - suspect that an excavation wouldst be revelatory of an internal reinforcement.

wrt stem to steerer fit - the most extreme case of an "overholed" nervor steerer i have encountered was also on a boomer gypsy girl, an interclub.

all best wishes with the project! looking forward to reading the next installment...

Aurorabucky

Nervor, Nervar, Nervex........

Gotta love France.

juvela

additionyes, indeed. it can be positively unnerving.

btw - tip on searching for/ordering bends. the industry standard to measure widths center-to-center, typically in cms unless of course we are dealing with gb. however, the gentle folk at tecno tubo torino choose to measure and mark their products outside edge to outside edge. their bends are usually stamped with a two digit number on one end for their nominal width in cms.

------

the forum has a newly posted boomer merc ccc. happily she is in original livery. vector to signal nr. 1948:

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...-bikes-78.html

Aurorabucky

Btw, with respect to the 3ttt bars, that's the thing... They only have that one decal. No other markings numbers, engravings, branding, etc, and I haven't found those numbers you describe. On a good note, those bars are SOLID.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5808/...1b537a6c_k.jpg

juvela

they look to be Grand Prix series rather than Record series. absence of number at end could always be due to trail being trimmed for knee clearance, possibly in connection with fingertip use. or it may be that some or all Grand Prix bends did not receive the sizing marking.