joe englert

Philippe bike. Paint job and the lug works sure looks Italian to me. Columbus SLX tubing even. Rode it for a little 60 miler and I must say, it sure rode like one of my Italian bikes, in other words, great!! Lots of chrome on this and it cleaned up really nice. I even put on a Hinault saddle to make it even more French. Older 600 parts came with the bike, but they are just great, even though, I think Campy SR is what this bike needs. I' m thinking the bar tape has to go and be replaced with, maybe some Benotto pearl colored vinyl?

MikeWMass

Looks very nice, and I agree about the tape.

Chombi

I think the Philippe is indeed a French bike.
The ones I've encountered seem to be slightly newer from this one, with white paint and script letter graphics. I think they are quite rare, low production number bikes. Definitely a very good catch there......
Campy SR will look and work great on the bike, but personally, I'd prefer a full Spidel group on one to keep it a "Tout French" build.....

joe englert

Thank you for the information on this one. Spidel hey? A very good idea. That may be harder to dig up than a SR group, but it would be more "correct" for this little French number.

noglider 

Well, hey, Frejus is a French name, too, and it's an Italian bike, for sure.

John E

How wide is the BB shell -- 68mm (Fr) or 70mm (It)? What is the BB threadng -- 35x1 (Fr) or 36x24 (It)?

Chombi

Lots of 80's French bikes had BSC threading too. French bikes does not always = French threading. Least to say, a good number of them had Swiss threaded BBs too......

joe englert

I'm 99percent sure it's French. It has some French words on the top tube like "Haute Gamme" or something like that...at least I think that's French. "Fabrication Pro 7" is also on the top tube, although that is not French. There is a bit on the internet on Philippe bikes, I think they are still in business, that is IF it is the same Philippe bike that I have.

dddd

I'm looking forward to seeing this thing on Wednesday, can't wait to see what the Shimano bb cups say about the threading.

First thing I thought when I saw this bike was an Italian bike with a French name, though in truth a lot of other country's bikes became Italianized during the '80's.

Even back around 1973, when PX10's re-appeared wearing Nervex Pro lugs again but this time sporting ~76-degree frame angles (up from 72-degrees!) and arrow-straight fork legs, they appeared to be trying to out-Italian the new Italians, only to return to a rather British 73x73-degree geometry in 1979. Noting here that the Schwinn Paramount had it right all along...

Anyway, there can be a lot of overlap between borders, such as Belgium, Italy, France and Switzerland. It's how the modern bike evolved.

Then there are bikes like my Marinoni, which seems very Italian, but were these ever made in Italy? Hearing myself type all this nonsense immediately had me wondering what sort of bottom bracket threading that either of my worldly Cuevas bikes might have, and somehow I expected to perhaps see an Ital-threaded bb, but I took a look just now and found that the OMAS bb is "BSC"-threaded.

You never know.

John E

True about the Swiss threading -- my 1980 PKN-10 had that, which caught me by (pleasant) surprise. I had also heard about BSC on later French bikes.

However, a BSC, Swiss, or French BB would have a 35mm = 1.375" diameter, in contrast to the Italian 36mm, and the 70mm-wide BB shell was pretty much an Italian thing, as well, perhaps to maintain the same cross sectional ratio for some reason, i.e., 35:68 is very close to 36:70. The main contrast I was trying to draw was French vs. Italian.

obrentharris 

Fishnet stocking paint job?
Definitely French!

Beautiful bike.
Brent

icepick_trotsky 

Slap a Stronglight 107 crank on. Tres bien!

noglider 

@dddd, I don't think Marinoni made any frames in Italy. I could be wrong.

What ever happened to Cuevas?

dddd

Francisco Cuevas supposedly built frames for 65 years, going from Spain to Argentina to New Jersey, but only built under his own name during perhaps his last five years of building, perhaps as late as 1990 or so.

I was pretty sure Marinoni never built in Italy, yet the bikes themselves always seemed Italian to me. Marinoni still builds customs, now in Canada.

Bikedued

Hmmm, are those shifters the proprietary mounting era? That would be even more puzzling if they are?,,,,BD

noglider 

Oh, for some reason, I pictured Cuevas in Queens.

Marinoni is from Italy, and I hear he has a strong accent when he speaks French. I think I also heard he doesn't speak English. His frames are truly fine. No wonder Canada is so proud of him. There is mention him in a French Canadian film called Deux Secondes (Two Seconds), which is definitely worth watching with subtitles.

joe englert

I think the parts are original. I'm thinking the bike is from the mid 80's, that is about when Shimano came out with index shifting. I dont believe Shimano did aero brake levers at that time and that is why the levers are Dia Comp as I think Dia Comp was the company that had those before Shimano.

Wildwood 

With all the chrome a silver stem is my suggestion, unless you are staying all original.
Or a black seatpost, to match wheels/stem.

Very nice. Glad to see bikes that are less common.
Columbus tubing, hhmmmm - I wonder where in France the bike was made?
a few searches are in order.

edit: best search result was a BF thread giving the city as Blois, FR. - south of Paris. Still in business, but without the history of early models. Not the same company that turned out handlebars and other components.

Filochard

+1
I'm pretty sure this one was built by Philippe, the builder based in Blois.

Made top end ("haute gamme" in french) bikes at that time :
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cyclec...57622370021070

I was told Francis Quillon was an apprentice there before becoming the foreman builder for Meral in the 1970's and then with his own trade Cyfac in the 1980's.

JamesRL

My understanding is that Marinoni apprenticed in Italy before moving to Montreal in 1965, so it isn't surprising he favours Columbus and Campy.

Trakhak

Cuevas was certainly in Queens when I visited his shop in 1978 or so. There's still a Cuevas Bicycles Co. listed in Jackson Heights in Queens. Evidently he spent some time building frames in New Jersey, too. From the Classic Rendezous page on Paris Sport bikes (Paris_Sport Bikes):

In addition to "regular" manufactured bikes, there were Paris Sport high end frames made by interesting specialty builders who had brief stints for the Ridgefield Park concern. Those included Francesco Cuevas (Spain), Pepe Limongi (France), and Dave Moulton (UK).

Portfolio360

Hey Joe-
Relatively new to forum...first question!
Was wondering if you could tell me anything additional about this road bike from Cycles Philippe?
What size is this Pro 7 SLX bike?

Thanks-
David

Camilo

Gorgeous bike. If you want to go "French" on the components, look up what Spidel was - I believe it was just a joint venture between various French component makers. There was another similar venture with other French component makers, can't remmber what it was called. Why not just put together various good quality French parts from that era and not worry about trying to find Spidel badged stuff.

If it was me, I'd either stick with what's on there (leave it original), go the French route, or buy a silver Campy full group from whatever era you want, up to modern Veloce stuff. FWIW, I'd match the color of seatpost, stem and rims, but that's just me.

I really like the looks of that frame.

1simplexnut

[QUOTE=joe englert;1 I' m thinking the bar tape has to go and be replaced with, maybe some Benotto pearl colored vinyl?[/QUOTE]

Wow thats nice !!! YES please get rid of that foam tape Yick .

Paint job looks similar to some Tecnotrat(sp?) built Saronni frames I have seen in the past .

Look forward to seeing some pictures after tickle up

65Marinoni

Marinoni are made in Québec like as it has always been .