I have some Mafac competitions that I want to use with braze ons. I want to put them on a bike with 32mm tires and fenders. Backup plan is some racers, but they aren't as spiffy looking. I know I have to measure reach, there were 3 versions. Looking online, it seems like some of the longer reach Competitions have been used on a bike like I'm building. The back plate that comes on the stock brake actually takes up 10mm of clearance. And the Peugeot PY 10 had the brake bridge really low, so clearance was an issue with that bike as well.

I find some pictures of a MAP randonneur that has competitions. Only reference I found was on an ebay auction through Pinterest though. Which I don't seem to be able to get through to find out what kind of tires it had on it.

Anyone have any examples?

unterhausen-

About 10 years ago, I had Bicycle Specialties in Toronto add Mafac Competitions to my Bertin C 37 restoration. I have added some pictures below. If you need more info or specific measurements, please ask.





Sorry about the image size. I have shots of the rear brakes and the light mount etc. Just pm and we can arrange to email the other photos.

That's great, what a beautiful bike. What size tires will fit on that?

I found the MAP from the ebay auction,
Here is the album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/776465...h/15352672369/
here's the rear brake, I would say there could have been more clearance if it had been desired. Those look like 25mm tires to me.
MAP by Andrew:, on Flickr

This chart is from a Mafac poster, I think. You can find the full document here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/131757...7628023244738/
I don't know where I downloaded them from; Robert Broderick's, Stronglight's or Mark Bulgier's website?
Mafac centerpulls did not, I'm fairly certain, use longer "legs" below the pivot, like Weinmann and Universal, to make a longer reach brake. Mafac provided different "étrier" (stirrup, or arch) heights. There were 3 for the Racer and Competition (the same part numbers for both types, I believe), petit, grand and réglable. The last will give you 7 mm greater reach than the grand, because it's even taller, and has a slotted mounting hole, allowing 5mm adjustment. I realize you plan to mount the brakes to braze-on pivots, so the arch doesn't matter. I guess I'm just pointing out that the arms are all the same for each model.

It seems that along with tire/fender clearance issues with shorter reach brakes, there's also the issue of how much room there is between the pads to remove/install the tire past them. If you choose to space the pivots a bit wider than they are on the arch, that might work up to a point, until the overlap of the arms above the pivots looks funny. As you can see from the "ET" column in the chart, the braze-on ("tasseaux") range is the recommended pivot spacing, and is quite a bit wider for the Raids than for the Competition and Racer.

FWIW, I built a bike for my spouse with Mafac Competitions (with arches), stock Mafac pads, Pasela 700Cx35 tires, and Planet Bike composite fenders. I have to deflate the tires to "pretty soft" to get them out; but it's not such a problem. It's here:
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...nd-jubile.html
I'm pretty sure that the front is petit and the rear grand étrier -- not on braze-ons, obviously.

Thanks for mentioning the arch differences, I knew that at one time. That makes me happier. I think the brake is plenty wide enough for 32mm tires at the standard spacing. I'm not sure bigger would be a good idea, maybe 35mm? Spokes aren't what they once were, I have had some weird failures in the last year, so I'm worried about clearance with a broken spoke. In fact, the wheel I have been using for fit checks has a broken spoke,so I can easily test

This frame was built for 28mm with fenders, but since it never got chainstays, I can make it fit 32mm. TT might tilt up a little, but I'm assured nobody cares about that anymore.

I've got a MAP rando with 32mm tires and fenders. Unfortunately, I can't link you to them because I haven't posted enough. Frustrating. They fit great and work well, for what it's worth.

Anything else you wanna know?

Your MAP has Competition brakes?

We keep newbies from posting links and pictures and also limit the number of posts because it keeps spammers away. I know it's frustrating for a new user. But we don't have many spammers any more.

You can, of course, cheat a bit on the post widths,but the chart that [MENTION=93662]Charles Wahl[/MENTION] posted is the one I go by.

just spitballing, the 62mm distance between the bolt centers means there is right around 50mm between the arms, so that's enough clearance for a 32mm tire.

You can make Competitions work with 32 mm tires and fenders, but the setup is tight and it definitely squeezes the space that is left for tire to fender clearance..Since a picture is worth 1k words, here is a setup with the slightly longer 2000s, brazed on:

Thanks for the pictures, those must be 50mm fenders? I hate to tell you that the builder forgot to put a binder bolt for the seatpost

I measured the width at the bolts, it's 1.9 inches or a little over 48mm. This dimension is probably the same on everything other than RAIDs. I'm going to use 40mm Berthoud fenders. Just a little narrow, but they seem to work and they are bomb-proof. I think you could get a 50mm fender higher up with just the tiniest bit of blacksmithing. My main concern is that the fender not keep the brake from opening far enough to clear the tire. I would like 15mm of clearance in combination with keeping the brake shoes fairly close to the pivots for mechanical advantage. Hope to be able to mock it up on the frame today if I quit mucking about on the internet and go work on it.

They are 43 mm fenders and 30 mm tires. Keep us updated on this project...

Yes indeed! My 2012 MAP rando has Grand Bois "30mm" tires (they actually measure 32mm), Honjo fenders, and brazed on Mafac Competition calipers (the ones with the little foil sticker label at the far left side of the front brake arm).

A couple more posts and I'll be able to show you! ::smile::

And yeah, this certainly seems like a reasonable way to avoid spammers, I just wish I could answer your question better. Soon, soon.

I'd really like to see that, MAPs are nice bikes. I'm a bit surprised there are this many examples of bikes with brazed on competitions. I had seen a number of bikes with Racers, but I don't remember noticing any competitions before. The Competition was always my favorite MAFAC BITD, but I didn't see too many of them.

It has been a lathe-y sort of day so far, the lathe projects just tend to pile up and I like to knock them all out at once. And I needed to do a mod to my frame fixture to get this bike done

Story I heard is that Mitch at MAP happened on to a small supply of NOS Competitions some time ago, so they were a preferred option for people who didn't want to go hunting for used brakes back when narrower tires were the norm on custom rando bikes. It is an awfully nice looking brake.

When I bought this MAP (used, from the original owner) I was sad the brakes weren't Paul Racers, and doubly sad that the bike was for narrow 700c tires rather than plush 650b. In fact, I was so sad that I had a Fitz custom built that is very similar to this one, but for 650b x 48mm tires. Now I own two overly nice bicycles. I keep thinking I should let the MAP go, but every time I go out on it I have a lovely time and set a PR somewhere.

It is kind of fun having two bikes near-identical but for tire width. Maybe someday I'll get around to doing my own tire testing, who knows.

Two more posts!

thanks for posting that, that's a really nice bike. I love hand made double plate crowns. That has to be the most tire stuffed under a Competition I have seen yet. My family insisted on observing my birthday, so my workday was cut short. Back to work on this tomorrow.

I made the front triangle for this bike a long time ago. Finally put the chainstays on it today.
Once the chainstays are on the bike, it's all downhill from here. Flikr progress pics are in this album https://www.flickr.com/photos/151743...57699930598584


I'm using my only Reynolds 531 steerer for the fork. Also 3rd to last Reynolds 531 fork blades. I'm somewhat disgruntled that I never even got any lowball offers on them on ebay, so I decided to use them up. I don't want to be humping them around for another 40 years. For one thing, it's not likely I'll live to 100. I guess nobody likes skinny fork blades, or at least they prefer the Kaisei over 531.

Got a Compass crown for skinny blades, don't remember why, it's going on this bike now. I made a threaded plate to attach to the bottom of the steerer to hold the fender on. I'm going to clean it up on the lathe, otherwise I would have had to figure out how to fixture something like a washer on the lathe.

Turns out I had a set of SON dropouts for connectorless dynohubs that I didn't remember buying, so this is going to be a really fancy fork.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/151743...57699930598584

Wow -- I wish I could do that sort of stuff. Is there a thread devoted to this construction? If not, would you post your progress here, or in a new thread, please?

What's frustrating is not being able to see your MAP. Please do post another time (so you have 10 posts) so we can all see your MAP. Never seen one I didn't like!

All the MAPs I have seen have been wonderful, so I really want to see this bike too.

Charles, I will post progress here. Particularly brake related issues. Not sure when there will be more progress on the frame, probably today. I have a weird brevet starting tomorrow night lasting until Sunday morning, so progress over the weekend seems unlikely. Maybe some on Sunday if we make it back from Lancaster.

My plan is to fit the bridges so the fenders have tire clearance, and then fit the brakes. I think that will work.