French frame called Stella
 

I recently converted my french bike into a fixed gear. It was a Stella and i looked on the bottom of where the bottom bracket is placed into and the serial number is 1. Does that mean that i have the first one produced? Also does anyone know anything about this brand?

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/4537/img1630o.jpg

^my bike before conversion.

You might have a little more luck posting this in classic and vintage...

I know nothing about your bike myself, but that is not saying much.

My first thought is to move this to C&V like mr handy suggested. Stella is a vintage French brand and I'd guess yours is from the later 1960s through maybe the mid-1970s. It's an old marque so I doubt yours is the first.

Be warned, not all of the C&Vers are fond of fixie conversions.:rolleyes:

I kinda doubt you have the first. Stellas go back-- Louison Bobet won his first two tours on them back in the fifties. Decent brand, good craft; like every other French maker, they made entry level boom stuff. Yours looks to me like a fairly basic, sixties/seventies bike to me (rear drops, crank, steel rims-- I think-- steel bars). A good conversion canidate.

Rear mech-- Campy Valentino? What are the hubs, out of curiosity?

Your pic is huge, and those of us on our C&V computers have to wait forever for it to download. One of these days I'll upgrade the ol' Commodore 64....

Interesting tidbit: Bevil Hogg, the co-founder of Trek, was the importer for Stella prior to starting Trek.

Does this help:
http://www.classicrendezvous.com/Fra...a_bicycles.htm
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/vrbn-o-z.html#stella

Have you checked other places for serial numbers? Not everyone put them on the bottom bracket.

Like many companies, Stella made a wide range of bikes from entry level to high end racers. That one I'm afraid is a 70s bike boom lowend model, though wheels may be from something else..

thanks. does anyone know id stella is a decent brand overall?

You can tell just by looking at it that it's a "decent" bike. I'd clean it up, and leave it just as it is! I love the old Campy deraileurs, and the steel (but serviceable) crankset. I really wish I had it myself. You ought to leave it alone. Jeeze it's even got Campy hubs! It's a nice older bike.

Don't molest it PLEASE.

Oh, I see it's already been molested. Really that's a shame. I hope you didn't file off the fitting and such:-(
Christ almighty WHY does EVERYONE think these nice older bikes have to made into "fixies"?
Damn shame....

It "was" a model SX-6. Not the highest quality they made, but a nice older bike. I suppose it an SX-Shix now, probably painted purple.

Yeesh... The guy came for information and assistance not to be ridiculed.

It's a nice lookin bike and would make a fine ride in any form. I agree to not file/permanently damage the bike though. You never know when you may get a different bike and want to restore this one to it's geared glory. I'm in the very position with my Nishiki :). Save the parts and keep the frame intact!

I'm also from San Jose, I'll wave if I ever see you riding around.

It appears that it is on craigslist now http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/bik/1281302751.html

I don't think any grinding was involved.....it looked like the frame did not have a derailler hanger...looked like a claw/clamp on derailler

don't do it
 

I don't mrean to be so bitter, but come on people! These older bikes are gonna ALL be turned into God forsaken fixies unless someone TELLS these people NOT to molest what are OBVIOUSLY good older bikes. That's our job, right?

Please don't post "after" shots.......

Hey as long as the frame is intact and they sell me all the nice bits and pieces I'm fine with it :)

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/144/img1730.jpg

i didnt file anything btw.

you did strip offythe decals and repaint everything including the lugs a generic white, reducing the coolness factor to next to nothing imo, and making me very very sad.

Stanley, too. :)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../thumbnail.jpg
"Stella!"

"you did strip offythe decals and repaint everything including the lugs a generic white, reducing the coolness factor to next to nothing imo, and making me very very sad."

Since the bike doesn't have NJS stamped somewhere on it, the coolness factor is low anyhoo...

I'd love to own a sixties/fifties Stella; along with a Mondia, a dream bike of mine.

I, too, would have left the original paint, perhaps doing touch up where needed. You've taken some of the uniqueness of the bike away. It is, however, your bike. Ride it, enjoy, take care of it.

I agree with the guys above. I love how it looked previous, but to each their own.

ridiculous! so you took an obviously unique, cool, and OLD road bike, and turned it into a pseudo modern fixed gear bike just like EVERYBODY in the city has. The decals are gone for good. The originality is GONE for GOOD. A machine is ORIGINAL only once.
Look, if you have to do this again, do it to something OTHER than an older more or less classic road bike OK? It wasn't like a great collectable, but I for one (and many others here I imagine) would really like to have an older 1960's or early 1970's bike with old fashion Campy goodies just like what you had. As a matter of FACT I have been assembling an old "gruppo" of Campy Gran Sport components hoping to find a frame more or less just like yours was, so as to build something just like what you had.
I'm sorry, I know you own the bike, and yes you should do what you want to with it. But, God almight guys STOP turning everything into fixies, OK?

+1, with the factory paint and decals intact, it was very cool. Fixed or geared.

Now it's really just a generic fixie.

Actually the fact that it is no longer cool to me probably makes it cooler on the SS/fixed board.