Does anyone have any knowledge of vintage tandems? Can you tell me anything about this bike?

link

I'm considering picking it up for my fiancee and I. It's the first one I've seen that has a seat size configuration/size that I think would work for us. It seems decent as its got shimano 600 components but I don't know much about tandems. It's not far from me and I was thinking about checking it out tomorrow.

Is the price reasonable? Do you think it's good tubing? ANyting else to tell me about it or tandems in general?









Thanks in advance for any info/help. I hope this doesnt get moved to vintage values as I'm really looking for much more info than just a price eval...

I don't know anything about it but it rocks! I'd buy that if the sizing fit my GF and I...Make sure you take a really good look at the bottom brackets. I'm guessing one of them is an eccentric so you wanna make sure it's in good shape. Also carefully check the rear part of the frame (mainly the stokers seat tube) for bends. I can't imagine a "mixte" design is the strongest design for the rear of a tandem but what do I know? The cranks are still in sync so that's a good sign...

I'd ride that!

Looks like a nice one. In the 70's the Gitane was about the only "stock" tandem available. Custom jobs like Bob Jacksons or Jack Taylors were hard to find and very expensive.

Things to look for are 40 spoke wheels, heavy duty spokes, rims, hubs. Looks like it has cantalever brakes, some had drum rear brakes which is a nice option. Like the bar end shifters, keeps your hands on the bars at all times.

One thing is its more of a recreational rider than an all out touring tandem. I would imagine it to be a bit whipy on climbs and decents. For fun rides on level terrain it should be a blast.

EDIT: Just looked at the listing and it does have a drum brake. For that amount of money its a slam dunk deal. Its less than a new cheapo mountain bike.

The more I look at it the better it gets. Its Orange, one of the nicest Gitane colors. Large sized, kinda rare for tandems you'd find today. Has the drum brake, Looks like a winner!

I'd put some really good tires on it. Something with a large width. And some Brooks saddles, and you would have a great tandem for maybe 600 bucks.

Compared to modern tandems it has a very short spacing between the captain and stoker and also a rather narrow hub (probably 120 mm or 126 mm) and it'll be a pretty flexible frame. But it looks like it should work fine if you're willing to live with those limitations and the friction shifting. It'd be best if your fiance is fairly small. That way the limited stoker room is less of an issue and also the rear wheel would be more likely to hold up. We had problems with broken spokes on ours and eventually replaced it with a 48-spoke wheel. I think the flanges on the drum-brake hub were a bit too narrow and tended to fatigue the spokes.

Bargain the price down based on its limitations compared to more current tandems.

get it!

+1. That is a steal at that price.

How much more uncommon are lugged tandems than the welded ones?

Here's the (only?) cheap option on a new road tandem- posted in the tandem forum..

https://www.amazon.com/Tonino-Lamborg.../dp/B000R7DND2

I'd take the gitane over that one, but I'd try to get for under 300.

There was this Peugeot tandem on the Raleigh C/L that REALLY piqued my interest. Too bad I think it's too big for my GF and I because I want it so bad.
https://raleigh.craigslist.org/bik/1167551519.html
-Gene-

I think that thing is awesome ala my "get it!". How fast could something like that go on flat ground? I had a Schwinn Twinn, so that is my only tandem experience. Are we talking 45mph+?

I vote for picking it up as well. If I had the cash I would go get as it is my size and I am looking for something to ride with my son. It is probably a bit too big for him at the moment. If you purchase it and decide to sell it later, contact me and we can work something out.

+1! I'd snag it!

I have an old french tandem and its not perfect. It has big heavy tubes, its not easy to change gears smoothly and it a bit small for the stroker .. . . but its my favourite bike because tandems are so much fun!

I've had a Gitane tandem for about 25 years. It's a bit flexy as tandems go, but still fun to ride. Came stock with 40 hole wheels front & rear, oversize fork blades, MAFAC "Tandem" cantis and an Atom drum brake, oversize 12mm rear axle, and Atom "Tandem" freewheel (4 pawls instead of the usual 2). The stock headset barely lasted one season, but I replaced it with a Stronglight "Delta" which has held up fine ever since.

I assembled a Gitane Tandem back in my LBS days. It took forever to assemble. We sold a few of them, I recall they had a nasty habit of flattening the cotter pins if ridden hard enough. One kept coming back for that over and over again. I think the owner finally eliminated the problem by closing the shop.

The tubing was just standard Gitane gaspipe as I recall.

Some were gaspipe, some were Reynolds 531. Mine came with cotterless Stronglight 99 tandem cranks.

I have one that has the very same problem with cotters, but I don't ride it anywhere near enough to put in the time/money to convert it to cotterless cranks.

For $345 you can't really go terribly wrong, provided it works mechanically, but I'd still offer less. Your stoker won't like that short rear cockpit -- she'll be pressed right up against your backside, which is fine for spooning in bed but gets a little cramped out on the road. It'll probably weigh a ton: those two twin tubes (often called "laterals") running from headtube to rear dropouts add a lot of weight, and tandems in those days tended to be over-built to start with esp. with cheap tubing. Lugged or lugless doesn't make much odds on a tandem because there weren't stock lugs available for all the odd "crossing angles" in a tandem frame -- that's one reason for the twin tubes running down beside the main tubes in that design instead of having to be joined "in plane."

You will find it next to impossible to buy replacement parts:
1) Headset is probably French-threaded so when it wears out -- and tandems eat headsets -- too bad.
2) New 700 C wheels won't match the location of the cantilever brakes which are set for the 27" wheels.
3) Many designs for eccentrics -- that's the device in the captain's bottom bracket that rotates to keep the front chain tensioned properly so it doesn't fall off -- have come and gone over the years. If yours is seized in place from rust, it will be a bugger to get out, or even adjust. A new one might not fit the BB shell.
Those 3 tests alone would be deal-breakers because failing any one of them means you are spending $345 for a bike-like artifact that you could use as a trellis in your garden to grow clematis on.

However, the bright side of all this is that you won't be tempted to sink upgrade dollars into it (except for tires.) If you find that it works well enough for you both to catch the tandeming bug, you will undergo a profound transformation: very quickly neither of you will want to ride your single bikes ever again because the tandem is more fun. If you can't take the tandem with you on a trip, you won't go. Then you will look for ways to afford a really good modern tandem that will weigh half as much, perform 5 times better (especially from the stoker's perspective), and cost 10 times as much! When you start wearing matching jerseys, then you're really hooked. But listen to your stoker, always, because if she's not happy, the team's not happy.

I just think $345 is a little steep for an initiation fee, unless you can be sure that you are looking at the three tests above in a cold objective light and decide you still want to give it a shot.

Good luck!