No, it was stolen back in 1981 from the back seat of a friends car in San Francisco in broad daylight. The thief took it and my 700c lugged frame mountain bike that I built back in 1976.

They even broke into the trunk and stole both sets of wheels.


There were several shops in the northwest that imported Bertins during the late 70s and early 80s.

The site http://bertinclassiccycles.wordpress.com/ has a lot of interesting information and history about Cycles Andre Bertin.

Much of the information and details about the various models and components is anecdotal and hearsay submitted by folks who "weren't there".

Remember what I said before, Bertin built bikes (for the most part) to the importers or French dealers specs so there were lots of variations.

We used to talk with the folks at Cycles Bertin on a regular basis.

When we first started importing Bertins in 1975 we had to write them and request that they correspond with us in French as their English translations were unintelligible!

I had a girlfriend who was a French translator and after I explained some bicycle terms it was easy. After a while we could figure out most of what they were writing about without her help.

It turned out that the previous translations had been done by one of the secretaries at Bertin using a French-English dictionary!

In the summer of 1977? we were waiting for a delayed shipment of 2 containers of Bertin bikes. It was coming up on the end of July and we hadn't heard from Bertin so we called them which was uncommon and expensive back then.

We were concerned that the bikes wouldn't get out in time because the WHOLE country of France shuts down for the month of August.

The end of August through the beginning of September was our busiest season with students returning to school and so on. We needed bikes to sell!

The first time we called, Andre Bertin's 2 sons were the only ones at the plant. They both spoke perfect Oxford English and confirmed that our shipment was en route!

Don't believe everything you think! Especially when it comes to classic bikes! ;-)

Chas. verktyg