Cycles Lygie bought from a now good friend! Pic heavy!
 

Hi friends, this is a new score! Actually, my brother scored it for himself via my recommendation! He is a newbie to road bikes/components, but he will be an accomplished collector flipper in no-time! :-) After great communication with the seller, I was able to obtain this nice Lygie bike. It is chrome with Reynolds 531 frame(has remnants of the 531 decal, but somebody put a 531 fork decal on the seat tube) Lol!)/fork and mostly Campagnolo with the exception of the brake calipers (Mafac), Weinmann levers (original?), and saddle....shhhh, it's a Schwinn! :-) I was also able to obtain a Colnago Super (will have its own thread soon, and a box full of Campagnolo components with about six original Campagnolo bxes! I will not tell you what I was not ale to secure, as it will just ruin my day, and everybody elses! Please let me know your thoughts, and comments! I sincerely appreciate them!

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Flash

Fantastic score, can't wait to see the Colnago and the Campag parts! The Lygie will look stunning with a bit of chrome polish and maybe a set of Campagnolo brakes.

Ah-HOO-ah!

I never saw one in that color scheme before (chrome with green) but it takes me back to bygone times...this was a brand that a lot of the "cool kids" (rich and spoiled) favored in my jr. high and high school. Didn't know anything about classic bikes back then, but I could tell that these had very classy details (chrome and Campy!) and once the coolest guy in class had one he made sure everybody fawned over it and all the other kids in his clique followed suit and bought Lygies, too. Or rather had Daddy buy them. Doubt that anybody actually knew how to pronounce the name. Turns out there was a good reason for the popularity: Hollywood Cycles was the main importer of this brand for at least the Western US (maybe the entire US) and that was a pretty exclusive retailer. Second only to Hans Ohrt (cycles to the STARS) on the same blvd. but down the road in Beverly Hills.
The choice among the cool kids was a white frame with chrome lugs and accents...all Campy of course.
I never did own one...never was a cool kid, either ;)

I never would have thought of green with chrome - but I will from now on... that's a sharp combination! Is that Bennoto tape on the bars? That stuff is terribly uncomfortable on my hands, but it could be forgiven in this instance because it looks terrific with the chrome!

So, a little bit of a hi-jack: I went to the CR main pages to see what pix were there of vintage Lygies, and went first to the French section...nothing! So I checked the Italian section and there were a few pics of one '60s and one earlier still. But in spite of the history paragraph (from none other than Steve Maasland AKA Citoyen du Monde) wherein it's spelled out that this is a very old Italian marque, I had only seen examples from the bike-boom era which all were clearly marked as built in St. Etienne (that ain't Italy, folks!) despite all the Italian components (and the Reynolds 531 tubing).
So...got me wondering about stuff I don't know:
Does this era Lygie have an Italian BB shell and threading?
Is the 531 Metric dimensions or Imperial?
What dimension are the oval fork blades?
I remember many having the chrome Nervex Pro style lugs, but they may have been lugs that just looked like Nervex pros...anybody know what brand Lygie used? (I think the plainer style are Emilio Bozzi)

http://www.charleypatton.com/tefteller/IMG_4502.JPG

Here's a 1970, full Campy Record one I owned awhile back. It was a sweet riding bike.

They are Italian throughout regardless of the French reference on the badge. Built at Atala mostly I've heard.

And I just looked thru the archives right here at good old C&V and there's a post from our own CduM where he says that Lygie "had production" in St. Etienne, France as well as South America (he thought it was Argentina...a good guess).
Kind of interesting that if these were made right along with Atalas in Cesare Rizzato's factories, were only Lygie frames made with 531?

Whats the price for one of those chrome with green lygie w/ original parts.?

Good eye, on the lugs, they're pretty "plain" looking, alright, much like Frejus-es. And your mentioning Bozzi kinda reminded me, that I had indeed read about Lygie a time or 2, but not enough to be very familiar. I use a bright green Silca frame pump on my chromy Frejus, & it looks just like that, LOL, but it's not the same as green varnish. ;) Mine had blue varnish on the head tube & (stripes) on the seat tube. :) BTW, big congrats to the OP, that should be a SWEET riding bike. :thumb: We were just saying recently, there weren't too many Italian-built Reynolds frames, compared to Columbus (an obvious understatement). ;)

OK, ignore the last post. My zombie-thread karma must be catching up to me. :D ;)

I see it's a Zombie thread back from the dead, but there's a Lygie on my local CL:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/bik/4276370707.html

[h=2]Vintage Lygie Campy lugged Italian frameset - $300 (Upper East Side)[/h] http://images.craigslist.org/00X0X_i...9i_600x450.jpg
http://images.craigslist.org/00X0X_i...V9i_50x50c.jpghttp://images.craigslist.org/00Z0Z_4...tiz_50x50c.jpghttp://images.craigslist.org/00202_j...OTz_50x50c.jpghttp://images.craigslist.org/00Z0Z_H...cZ2_50x50c.jpg

Frameset is a vintage Italian Lygie with Campagnolo dropouts. Size is approx 57cm from bb to tt. Paint has some chips and scrapes, but appears original. Chrome lugs are beautiful, and frame and fork are both straight and true. Includes frame, fork, and Italian thread Miche bb only.

:-) I was browsing through the threads and I see this one, which is mine of course, and I thought that I was losing it based on the age of it! I actually never got to ride that bike. It went to a buyer in Japan after I listed it on ebay. My brother shipped it from California!

Flash