Finished this 1982 Motobecane Team Champion 2 weeks ago...



I bought the frame on eBay in 2007 and did a local pickup. When i waled up to the seller and he handed me the frame, the fork didn't look right. I looked at the fork end and it said Tange... The first thing that I did was to feel under the top and down tubes at the head tube. There were slight ripples. It was in a header.

I took the frame to a friend's shop and put it on his layout table to check the alignment. It was straight but I was sorely disappointed (read sick) because the rest of the frame was in beautiful condition.

I started assembling it but found the Tange replacement fork was too long. The front of the top tube sat over 1/2" higher than at the seat post. This threw the head tube geometry off. It sat half assembled for a number of years.



Luckily I bought a Gitane that came with 2 forks. The spare fork was the same geometry as the original Moto fork and looked the same. I finished assembling it after that.



The components are either same as the bike was originally with or period correct. I used a Stronglight 104 crankset because I could use a 37T chainring - the original Stronglight 106 or 107 cranks use the same 144 BCD chainrings as Campy NR/SR and are limited to a 42T small chain ring (OK, or uber rare 41T).

Stronglight 104 bis



I installed Weinmann Carrera 400 brakes which are an upgrade from the Carrera 600 ones that originally came on the bike.



I have a set of NOS wheels with Mavic SSC rims and low flange Maillard 700 hubs that these these bikes came with but their are sort of wall hangers....

The bike rides very smoothly and handles between responsive and twitchy but after a few miles it feels great. I can dive into hard corners and not feel any lack of control.

verktyg

Chas.