Greetings all... I have been given a bicycle that I rather like. I believe it probably late 60s but is anybody able to confirm when these dropouts were available please?

velobase says "1940s" and has a picture of them from the 1953 catalogue.

(let's see the rest of it)

Ok.




Lovely Phillipe stem, bars are toast

Record?

Modèle 48

The Campagnolo hub is Nuovo Tipo.

The front high flange is a Pélissier, the nuovo tipo set I have are both high flange, did they do a low flange as well?

Yes:

N.B. the Pélissier hub is arguably as high quality or better than the Nuovo Tipo hub, but finding a match might take a while.

That Campy hub is different from the1265 in the catalog though. Maybe had the same name or even the same part #, but the one on the Payan is older, maybe much older. Note the spoke flange is offset further to the left on Payan, making for a wheel with more dish. That design was used then dropped by a few manufacturers. I guess they were trying for a wider bracing angle, but having it wider only on the left results in slack spokes on the left, short spoke lifetime, bad design.

If I had to bet on whether it was called "Nuovo Tipo" I'd bet No, I think this hub pre-dates that name. Maybe Vecchio Tipo? (That's a joke son.)

Take good care of the parts on that bike, some are rare and sought-after. Not the rear mech which is later and common as dirt, but at a quick glance I spot a desireable saddle and h-bar stem, probably more. Frame looks pretty nice too. Needs a much older Simplex rear mech, not sure which, but one of the pull-chain type. A 5-4-3 would be too new, and anyway you can't afford one! Maybe a Juy 51 or Juy 59, TdF or Champion du Monde.

Note the large outward offset built into the dropout, which puts the derailleur mounting point farther to the right than a moder straight-down hanger. That'll mess with modern mechs, preventing them from shifting as far inward toward low gear. Maybe you know otherwise, like maybe it works fine as shown? But my gues is you need a pull-chain type made for that offset dropout.

EDIT: Oops I see it's on the low-gear sprocket in the pic, so that answers that. Only a 4-sp though, which is period-correct, but you may not be able to reach low on a 5-sp.

Hey, can I get a pic of the front of the head tube? Based on other clues, I think it's old enough to have the earlier style of Nervex Pro, with sort of vampire fangs right in front on the headtube, instead of the more-famous whale-tail. Earlier-type Pro lugs went away by 54 or 55 I think, though it's always possible a builder took a while to work through a big pile of older lugs, so it doesn't date the frame by itself.

The more I look the more I like this frame, it's a gem.

Thanks for all that! I agree the more I look at it the more fascinating I'm finding it and can't wait to ride it. Unfortunately I'm not riding at all at the moment. Front view of the head tube coming up...



Teeth

French bike serial number

Offset shown more clearly


99. 4

Nice brake release

Fun bike, wind back the clock to the early 1960’s at least.
look at that front mechanism.
shift levers no doubt exchanged later, early were natural plastic and definitely had a times up point.
the drive side dropout… could even be late 50’s.

Yep them's the early Pro lugs with the vampire fangs instead of whale tails. If you look at a hundred Nervex pro frames on average all 100 will be whale-tail -- yours are very rare.

I'm gonna go with early-'50s as my guess.

If you're not very proficient at re-rounding the seatpost hole in the frame, bring it to someone good, it needs work but heavy-handed prying can ruin it. Don't mean to insult your ability, I just don't know you. Correct post size is likely 26.4. Obviously throw away that shim that's in there now!

Check the Dural Forge brakes for oil holes at the pivots. It probably doesn't have them; they were only on very early brakes.

As suspected no holes in the brakes. It also looks like the entire frame is chromed.

The poor thing is obviously filthy. What's the best to clean it carefully with, without spoiling the decals which look like they are exposed not lacquered over. As it's obviously original and 60 or so years old as it worth putting a 2K lacquer over it?

Here are some catalog pages related to Simplex dropouts that I've collected over the years:

1954 (DisraeliGears website)


1960 (DisraeliGears website)


1964 (source unknown)


1971 (DisraeliGears website)
It seems to me that the dropouts in question are the 932-935 {edit} 880/881 series, and that mudguard eyelets have been removed on the Payan frame (agreed that it looks like a very nice frame) -- I've never seen these dropouts without them, and there seems to be some rust and grinder wheel profiling, but I could be wrong. I have two frames with the 881/881B dropouts, lacking the derailleur hanger, and they're less {edit} not very beefy, about 5 mm thick, even though clearly forged.

That there is some excellent info thank you very much! You are correct there are signs of the eyelets having been ground off. What I can't tell from the pictures is which ones are offset for the derailleur hanger. Mine are also very definitely marked Le Simplex, rather than LJ Simplex or Juy Simplex.

I think that all the dropouts with hangers in the 1964 and 1971 pages are "straight", while in the earlier pages the 880 and 934 items have the offset hangers. About Le vs LJ vs Juy, I have no idea what's going on there. What's interesting to me is how long the 880/881 dropouts were around, during the hegemony of Campagnolo 1010.

Household degreaser. I think it's going to come up a treat. I'll post a separate thread about it when it's progressed a little.

Small update that makes me very happy. The freewheel is properly jammed onto the rear nuovo Tipo. I was going to swap the rims for some more appropriate non tubulars but then realized I have some early 70s wide flange nuovo tipos on clincher rims. Maybe 10 or 15 years too young but I think spot-on for the spirit of the animal!

I think there's a lot to be said for a sympathetic restoration like this. This is quite the find.