Saw a 1980-81-ish Motobecane Le Champion yesterday
 

It was parked in the bike rack outside of work. No idea who owned it but it was in pristine condition with beautiful blue paint but with a big fugly padded saddle someone had added. That said, man was Motobecane slipping at that point. The frame was nice, lugged Columbus tubing, but some of the components were downright awful. Front and rear derailleurs were Nuovo Record which was what I expected. But the crank was some kind of three spoke job. The brake calipers were Weimann, I didn't see a model but they looked like 500s but the levers were Dia-compe with suicide levers. I didn't think that would be original but it had the molded on blue plastic bar covering just like my Jubilee Sport and it didn't look easy to replace them without messing up the bar covering so I don't know. I meant to get some pictures when I got back from lunch but didn't get a chance. I am not exactly sure about the date but it doesn't look like the ones in the '79 or '84 catalogs online and it looked a lot like my '81 Jubilee Sport so I figured it's around there. I should checked the date code on that NR RD. With any luck it will show up again. The company is consolidating everyone in our building so lots of new people and an occasional new (or old) bike are showing up.

The original owner probably had the LBS swap out some items when it was purchased to make it "more comfortable" like those suicide levers. You see Paramounts with Twin Stik shifters & those same suicide levers all the time.

Ugh...why would you buy a Le Champion and make it "more comfortable"? (Rhetorical question :) )

That three arm crank was kind of cheap looking but looked at least period. I can't imagine why anyone would change that out. Anyway, you could certain make it into a pretty darn nice bike with a little effort.

If you see it out again, you could leave a sticky on it offering to take it off his hands so he could buy a "more comfortable" bike. ;)

Those were factory options on the Paramounts.