Gitane Road bike
 

so i scored a gitane road bike from a friend for free.... No clue what the hell it is or what was stock on it? i dont believe its a very high end frame at all but its a project for me thats all i care about.. My question is there a site around were i can look up the serial number and figure out what model and year it might be?( i used one to identify a Raliegh before) As of right now theres no sign of any stickers saying the tubing type or anything...I could barely tell it was a Gitane actually i had to do some deciphering of stickers...As far as the frame its all light blue with a bunch of metal flake in the paint. There isnt any chrome on the fork ends or anything. There is no lugging any ware on the frame except for the fork crown. Any help would be great! thanks ahead of time guys! ill post some pics up tommorow for a little more info for ya!

Incase your curious these are the numbers i pulled off the bottom bracket
C110455
24504
11
threw a couple pix up if any one has any insight on what it may be let me know...

Thanks

Photos help. Good luck on the serial numbers - there doesn't appear to be much reasoning to Gitane's system. Check out the catalogue pages at www.gitaneusa.com for clues on the bike.

bump

1. Check for date codes on components. The vintage Trek site has an awesome set up for date codes.

2. Looks like a bottom end bike, I would expect tubing to be gas pipe. Many manufacturers "conveniently" forgot to label gas pipe frames.

Are the rims steel? They kind of look like it.

The decal scheme and lugless frame indicate early 80s vintage, low end model ("Allure" maybe?).

Trek was the North American distributor for Gitane at that time; we saw a lot of those lugless frames break. The fact that yours has made it this long has to be a good sign, though...

Looks to me the fork and down tube are bent. If the components are original, then this is a low end Gitane. Check out the Gitane forum, probably can find more info. There are some vintage Gitane catalogs around the web too, do a search.

ya the down tubes got a lilt tweak it... its now destined to be my polo bike ! I figured it was any thing great by the uhhhh lug work and bad welding skills.... but at least i have a couple extra parts now... the rims are not original i think, since they are olld 27 in inch mavics....!

Hey guys, i have also scored a Gitane for free and i was wondering if anyone could help me find out more about it. It's a Grand Sport De Luxe with Sun Tour Parts, Weinmann brakes and Rigid supercromix rims (the kind with diamond shaped rivits along the edge where the brake pads press). Some of the decals read "Custom made in France" and "Tour de France" and "émail luxe puo lyméisé". I deciphered a few random numbers of the left dropout; the larger ones, i believe read 5421 and the smaller ones read 187. I don't know the year but any info would be much appreciated. Thanks!http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...34/photo-1.jpg

If it says "Tour de France" that is what it is. or is it? the beauty of Gitanes is that workers would use whatever stickers they had laying around.

Can you spot a Reynold's sticker? Try weighing it? M '73 Gitane TDF weighs 22.5lbs.

As to the OP, what components do you have on the bike?

Well, the "tour de france" sticker is the large red one running down the seat tube in the picture. It has the Gitane logo and says tour de france in about 12 different languages on it, i actually assumed the sticker reading "Grand Sport De Luxe" was the model of the bike since it was placed right next the 2 "Gitane" labels on each side of the down tube. No sight of a "Reynold's" sticker though, the ones i listed pretty much cover the labels on the frame. The interesting sticker is the one in french, "émail luxe puo lyméisé", along the chainstay. Is it just the frame that weighs 22.5 lbs? Everything that it came with should be Original Production except the seat, which i swapped myself for one that was not torn up. Like i said the brakes and levers are made by Weinmann, the rear cluster is Sun Tour HONOR, as well as the derailleurs and shifters. The rims look nicer than plain steel ones with lots of tiny diamond-shaped depressions along the edge to grab the brake pads better when they clamp down. Those are made by Rigid and apparently are the supercromix model. I can find sizes later if that helps.

Azari,
What you have there is the classic Gitane Grand Sport deluxe. Early 70's "bike boom" bike. They are nice riding bikes and are comparable to Peugeot UO-8's. Fix it up and ride it. I have one and enjoy riding it very much.

thank you for the info! I fixed up my first bike a year ago for a daily commuter, it's a Univega Maxima Uno (mid-80's i'm guessing by picture comparisons) and i love it. It's fairly similar to this Gitane as far as class-type goes, and I'm looking forward to working on this next one as i got them both for free (both previously collecting dust hanging on hooks in relatives' garages). Do you really think this Gitane is early 70's? It seems that these French-made bikes are harder to peg with IDs for serial numbers being so tough to find on the web.

I would guess the op's bike is a super challenge. I have one in a smaller size. It has a nice ride but is a mid entry level model. hi-ten, stamped drops, but the wheels are alloy mavic and most of the parts are alloy.http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=156858

No SunTour
 

" Everything that it came with should be Original Production except the seat, which i swapped myself for one that was not torn up. Like i said the brakes and levers are made by Weinmann, the rear cluster is Sun Tour HONOR, as well as the derailleurs and shifters. The rims look nicer than plain steel ones with lots of tiny diamond-shaped depressions along the edge to grab the brake pads better when they clamp down. Those are made by Rigid and apparently are the supercromix model. I can find sizes later if that helps"

My friends and I all rode French bikes in the early 1970s. One had a Gitane, and it sounds similar to yours, down to the Rigida chrome rims. The SunTour derailleur is not likely original, as you would find European groups on these bikes, not Japanese. My friend's bike had Simplex shifters and derailleurs with an MM Atom freewheel, if I remember right. Same freewheel that my Mercier had.

I'm not an expert by any means, but we worked on our bikes together and rode everywhere through high school and even college. Gave my Mercier to thrift shop when we started having kids. Duh.

That is not entirely true about SunTour not being original...it is known that on the lower end Gitanes if the builder went to grab a Simplex Prestige and that box was empty he or she would grab a SunTour. This mostly happend to export bikes to the USA/Canada.

If you don't have Reynold's it isn't a TDF; sorry. And yes my Father's TDF weighs with new brake shoes and a 100g lighter seat, is 22.5lbs. Not far off from many of today's affordable roadies in Al.

I think this Gitane is actually a later 70's model due to the "modern" stickers that are on the bike. The big chrome and colourful GITANE stickers are from the early 70's...usually. If your BB is low to the ground and you get some good toe overlap with the wheel turned 45 degrees, keep it. That sort of design was abandoned and compromised in my opinion becauser of lawyer fears.

The stability of my low Gitane vs. my tall Bianchi is incomparable, a much better ride so maybe you don't get Campy derailleurs and "special" steel tubing but at the very least you get a strong, dependable bike that can be modernized or NOS'ed for Sunday cruises ;).

Sorry to bring this thread back from the dead after so long, but I just picked up a frameset that's identical to the OP's. For anyone who comes across one and is looking for info, it appears to be a Gitane Leopard 2366, according to their 1984 British catalog:

http://www.gitaneusa.com/images/catalog/1984/british/1984-British-catalogue0003.jpg

http://www.gitaneusa.com/images/cata...alogue0006.jpg

Now to clean this thing up and see what I can do with it...
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=309536

Zombies are in