1990 R.M.O. Gitane FINISHED! 9th May

[Mike Muz]

Hi retro road fiends

This is the start of my first road bike build thread, so be gentle with me :roll:

Bought this frameset from a fellow retrohead in the Summer,



And have been slowly gathering parts for it. I hope to get as much Mavic for it as my budget will allow, I haven't done bad so far ,



A really nice front mech found by chance on this very forum,




I wish I'd taken a photo of this chainset as I received it. There has been A LOT of hand polishing gone into those,



Also got these Modolo calipers, not sure of the colour, really wanted silver. Anyone want to swap? Maybe I can strip the paint off these. Something I really like, is the rubber stop on the back of the caliper, that stops damage to downtube should bars swing around. Also bought the levers to suit,



Unfortunately, the Gitane stem is too short,



so I have found another, a Cinelli XA , which is on it's way to me. Will be looking out for a nice pair of 64/44 bars to go with it when I get started.
The saddle had to be a white one really didn't it, and I recently found a nice Rolls to perch on,



I think the seatpost will be too short, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

So, there's some expected paint damage from use,



I have got some pearl nail varnish to try and tidy this up, wouldn't it be great if I could get some pearl white brake cable to go with the bike!
Also, there are some chips in the black that will be easy to tidy up with some model paint .

The Campag bb and headset turned out to be in excellent condition when I cleaned them so will be staying.
Now I'm going to start a sales thread, so I can fork out for a Mavic 840ish rear mech.

More to follow.

Mike

 

[Mike Muz]

Re:

I also got some nice Mavic 500 hubs, and rumour has it one of my friends has a pair of MA40 rims to build them onto



I think the 12-19 block may be a bit too much for me, so I will keep my eyes peeled for something a bit lower. And no, the block isn't on tight!

That's all for now, hope you like it

Mike

 

[glorfingal]

Re: 1992, I think, Gitane

very nice .... looking forward to seeing this built up

 

[John J]

Re: 1992, I think, Gitane

very nice .... looking forward to seeing this built up

Me too

 

[NeilM]

Re:

Is the frame Columbus SLX Mike?

I saw a very similar 'Team' frame and forks on the bay just a week or two ago.

I'm looking forward to the build, other than it will make all my bikes look rough and shabby.... again. :facepalm:

 

[Mike Muz]

Re:

It was on my watch list Neil, just out of interest.
The tubing is Vitus GTI. Thank goodness it's not English or it would be Reynolds Vanden Plas !

Mike

 

[bduc61]

Re:

Vitus GTI is pretty rare as it has been produced during what I would call "the slow death " of the french company manufacturing it

it is seen very seldom on french frames and is one of the rare triple butted tubes of that era

Here a coment from a US forum

"Back in the 1980s manufacturers of the steel tubing tubing used on bikes produced a never ending variety of products with new names and descriptions. Some where the same steel alloy but different wall thicknesses of tubes, others were new steel alloys.

Ateliers de la Rive the French manufacturer of Vitus and Super Vitus tubing changed alloys a number of times during that era and thus new products and frame decals. For example, Super Vitus 971 and 980 were made from high strength, low alloy steel while Super Vitus 983 was made of a chrome-molybdenum steel. They all had comparable mechanical properties to Reynolds 531, Columbus, Tange and Ishiwata tubing.

Columbus started making some tubes out of exotic high strength steels and to a degree Ateliers de la Rive followed suite.

In the late 80s Ateliers de la Rive changed the names of their tube brands from Super Vitus 9xx to Vitus with different letter codes, i.e. TXO, XO, GTI and SM.

GTI is "triple butted". The wall thickness of the top tubes and down tubes start out at .9mm at the ends then drop down to .7mm for a small distance and are .6mm thick in the middle.

The seat tubes are .9mm thick at the bottom then go to .7mm and are .6mm at the top.

The steel used was a high strength chromium-molybdenum-vanadium alloy called 18 MCDV6.

It's a very light tube set."

 

[Mike Muz]

Re: Re:

Vitus GTI is pretty rare as it has been produced during what I would call "the slow death " of the french company manufacturing it

it is seen very seldom on french frames and is one of the rare triple butted tubes of that era

Here a coment from a US forum

"Back in the 1980s manufacturers of the steel tubing tubing used on bikes produced a never ending variety of products with new names and descriptions. Some where the same steel alloy but different wall thicknesses of tubes, others were new steel alloys.

Ateliers de la Rive the French manufacturer of Vitus and Super Vitus tubing changed alloys a number of times during that era and thus new products and frame decals. For example, Super Vitus 971 and 980 were made from high strength, low alloy steel while Super Vitus 983 was made of a chrome-molybdenum steel. They all had comparable mechanical properties to Reynolds 531, Columbus, Tange and Ishiwata tubing.

Columbus started making some tubes out of exotic high strength steels and to a degree Ateliers de la Rive followed suite.

In the late 80s Ateliers de la Rive changed the names of their tube brands from Super Vitus 9xx to Vitus with different letter codes, i.e. TXO, XO, GTI and SM.

GTI is "triple butted". The wall thickness of the top tubes and down tubes start out at .9mm at the ends then drop down to .7mm for a small distance and are .6mm thick in the middle.

The seat tubes are .9mm thick at the bottom then go to .7mm and are .6mm at the top.

The steel used was a high strength chromium-molybdenum-vanadium alloy called 18 MCDV6.

It's a very light tube set."

Many thanks for that information, I really wasn't sure about Vitus steel tubing.

Mike

 

[otherself]

Re:

Cool

You need this btw

 

[Mike Muz]

Re: Re:

Cool

You need this btw

No, no, no, no, no.

I have Benotto type I can use, or maybe a yellow/white fade. Thinking it's a '92 now. The team were riding Liberia frames in 1990, and I think these followed
Still looking for some Cinelli 44 width bars to wrap it onto :roll:

Mke