Originally Posted by
-holiday76
Thanks to another forum member this followed me home yesterday for the poultry sum of $125.
Any one else have one of these or any experience with them? I can't wait to hook up the kid trailer and get the fiancee on the back and take the entire family for a ride! Just needs some brooks saddles, a taller stem for the captain(me) to make the cockpit fit and I'll probably put flat bars or something on the back.
It looks just like my Rallye, purchased new in 1984. It's an interesting mix of appropriate components and cheap crap. The frame is pretty heavy and fairly flexy, but it has oversize fork blades. The headset is a cheap single-bike model (French thread, nach); mine barely lasted one season. I replaced it with a Stronglight Delta, which is still going strong. The tires were cheap, heavy clinchers. Mine didn't even last a month. Replaced with Specialized "Tandem" tires. The rims are nice Mavic alloy rims, with 40h hubs front and rear. The rear hub is an Atom drum brake with an oversize (12mm) axle, and an Atom "Tandem" freewheel (4 pawls instead of the usual 2; French thread again, of course). MAFAC "Tandem" cantilever rim brakes operated by a MAFAC double-pull lever (the drum brake is on the other lever). Cheap Simplex friction down tube shifters; I replaced these with "retrofriction" levers and the improvement was dramatic. Simplex front and rear derailleurs; the rear was a 410SX, IIRC. It worked well for over a decade and then one of the springs broke. I replaced it with a Shimano "Altus" which also worked well until earlier this year when I replaced it with a Campy "Rally" from BF member Pastorbob (thanks!). I really don't recall the seats at all, probably some awful vinyl a$$-hatchet of some kind. The captain's now is an Avocet "Touring" and the stoker's a Brooks B66.
And yes, I did move the drive crank back to the stoker's BB and saved a couple pounds of chain. I had a "kid-back" attachment on it for many years and used it to ride my kids to and from school.
All in all worth the $350 I paid for it back in 1984...