I've just returned from an old French barn!
 

With two bikes.

One is a 1937 race bike with a flip flop rear wheel with two cogs.

The other is a porteur.

Photos coming.

nice! looking forward to the photos

The photos aren't very good though as it's night time and i had to use flash.

The headbadge

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7001/6...6dd14e13_z.jpg

I always love finding bikes like this...but i never stumble upon any in my area. Time to break out the polish and start cleaning. So what is your plan with them?

I haven't any plan at the moment except to clean and polish as you suggested and to work out how to take a buckle out of a wooden rim!
I originally went looking for a Randonneur bike but found these two instead.

Could this be the original sellers plaque from a shop??

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7022/6...7e3302f1_z.jpg

I love your posts because you always come through with pictures. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks YoKev!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7013/6...e8e03abc_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7017/6...b4262cc9_z.jpg

Wow! I too love to find bikes like that. Sadly, most of the stuff I find in Thunder Bay is from the seventies and eighties, with a bit of the sixties, and a whiff of fifties thrown in, for good measure. The race bike is stunning and will be even more so in a short while I bet;-)

Congrats!

Thanks Randy!

Would this bike of been a fixed gear racer?
I thought the rear wheel was fixed on one side and freewheel on the other , but this one has a freewheel on either side.
I haven't checked but maybe they are different ratios? Or the fixed cog was replaced with a freewheel cog?
Any ideas what originally it would of been?

Yea, it would probably be fixed both sides, just an easier gear. That was common. It appears to be an old racer. Beautiful shape overall, love the head badge, and that could indeed be a original plaque. Quite an impressive find. The stem is very cool also. 1937, just a few years later and all hell broke loose. I wonder how long that bike had been tucked away? I don't find bikes in the states, i did find my Dnepr about a mile from where i live...
http://s1105.photobucket.com/albums/...er/My%20Dnepr/ My Dnepr

Keep posting. I am looking forward to seeing the rims, tires, etc. Thanks for sharing!

Your Dnepr is a beast!

Ok for more photos but i bought the bike without tyres and added some when i got home , so these aren't period.
Also it came with fenders in the same colour as the bike but the seller thought they weren't original.
I removed them earlier.

Congrats on the fine time capsule bikes aquisition Dave! Such nice finds only come once in a lifetime for most and for many, not even.
I was in Spain, Italy, France and the UK over the Holidays and I could not even spot decent C&V bikes on the street the whole time I was there! For some reason, I see more in the streets of San Francisco.

Chombi

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7144/6...fe81c874_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7002/6...24a6f160_z.jpg

Thanks, shame you didn't find anything while you were over here!
To be honest most of the bikes i see around Paris on the streets are modern bikes and fixed gears.
Sometimes i see old ten speeds but not too often.
But for the vintage stuff you have to search leboncoin or trocvelo or pignonfixe websites.

That set-up was the earliest derailleur. When you got to the top of the hill, you jumped off of the bike, turned the rear wheel around and went down the other side but with a smaller freewheel cog to allow for greater speed. At least that would be my guess.

I recall a story about Campagnolo, or someone, having trouble flipping the wheel during a race because his fingers were too cold. The first derailleur was invented not long after that incident.

Or so my memory recalls, I think, I can't remember.

Again, what a great find! You must be having lots of fun. And I thought I was doing good when I picked up a Nishiki International at the Dump today.

The "headbadge" in the first picture, may not be the maker. There is a bicycle shop in Paris with a logo very similar to that badge. http://translate.google.com/translat...26prmd%3Dimvns They are the oldest bike shop in Paris.
They may have had a local framebuilder make the frame for them, back in the day.

With a two freewheel flip-flop hub, more than likely it was not a track bike. Probably just a semi racer, with two gear ranges, for flats and hills.

Still, Great Find!

I think the saddle has seen better days.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7007/6...e29c9994_z.jpg

Is it normal for frames of this age to be lugless?
Does it mean a sign of quality or were a lot of bikes lugless back then?

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7172/6...b86856f9_z.jpg

Hey thanks for the info!!

I think you are right and i done a search and found this other bike by them though it is a bit newer http://forum.tontonvelo.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2170

Could be fillet brazed, or maybe internally lugged. Without a complete strip and/or internal examination could be hard to tell.

I wonder if the badge on the top tube was the original owners property tag?

If you are in Paris, you might want to give La Gazelle a call, or show the bike to them. Maybe some history there.

Maybe, i have come across these in the past but never this old or fancy.
Plus if the head badge is the maker and the shop then the other badge must be the original owner's badge surely.

Fantastic find there Daveyates!

Are those wine corks in the bar ends? If so there is not doubt that they're "vintage" too.


PS- I tried searching one of these sites ^ for a PX10 and it cursed me out! See?
"Si vous effectuez une recherche par mots-clés, vérifiez bien qu'il n'y a pas de faute de frappe." :eek: