Originally Posted by
georges1
Gitane were using mostly entry level Reynolds 453 tubing in the 80's, sometimes 531 and very rarely 753. They weren't better than Peugeot who offered 531c ,slx and753 in the late 80's to early 90's. Gitane started to be interesting in the 90's when they offered their columbus elos lugged frame and their columbus genius tig welded frame, besides that they were always a notch under Peugeot regarding quality of tubing.Peugeot 1987 catalog, Peugeot 1990 catalog, Peugeot 1992 catalog,later in 1998 appeared thePeugeot Team line series of bikes which were made à la carte and where you could choose your groupset and wheels ,something Gitane didn't offer.
Higher model Gitanes were made from Supervitus 980/983 and 531 tubing in the 80's Their top of the line Pro model was done in both 531, 531C and Columbus SL, depending on what year it was made
I'm not sure, but I think they issued SLX tubed frames in the very late 80's too. The difference was, the brazing and lug shaping was much better than Peugeots, even compared to Peugeot's top of the line bikes back then, unless you maybe get a special ordered PY frame from Peugeot's factory racing department.