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Old 09-25-20 | 12:29 PM
  #15  
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rustystrings61
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Joined: May 2013
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From: Greenwood SC USA

Bikes: 2002 Mercian Vincitore, 1982 Mercian Colorado, 1976 Puch Royal X, 1973 Raleigh Competition, 1971 Gitane Tour de France and others

Mine is 60 cm to top, so about 58 cm square c-c; I think Gitane is French for "Forget how it looks, focus on how it rides!" I always wanted but never scored one with the willow-leaf stay caps, mine have always been the swaged-over variety. Francophile's orange TdF is lovely and were it mine I would clean and scrub everything, replace the consumables and fit a good Ideale or Brooks saddle and call it done. Maybe fine a nicer set of Simplex Competition dt shifters, but that's it!
[MENTION=413240]francophile[/MENTION], thanks for the offer, but the mismatched Zeus locknut has grown on me. I wonder if the previous owner fitted it specifically so it would clear a non-French stem. At any rate, it works, and I am happy with it.

Somewhere I recall reading that TdFs are found with three different fork bends/rakes, though how gospel that statement is I couldn't say. You can see the difference between my green '71 and Francophile's orange one, though - the bend on his starts higher up and looks like a bigger radius than mine.
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