Concorde Mistral

[LongLegsRetro]

I acquired a rather tired Concorde Mistral some time ago from a Belgium guy who had brought his large collection of cycles over with him and was having a clear out.

The plan loosely being, rescue it, or if not viable, strip it down and sell it on as parts. It looked more a collection of parts, rather than a complete bike and had lost its original Concorde chromed forks.

Having striped it down, it became apparent that the replacement fork didn't fit the frame, the steerer tube being too short by about 10mm and some of the components were beyond saving.

So, undecided what to do with the parts that were salvageable and the frame it's self, I set about degreasing the frame and cleaning it up.

The frame cleaned up well, the blue paint and graphics have faded in places over the years, and there are rust spots on the chrome, but I think that's all reasonable and honest patina for its age. A bit of work with some paint renovator and wax should improve things.

 

[LongLegsRetro]

Although this a lower end Concorde frame made from Columbus Aelle tubing, it is nicely made with cut out lugs, ornate rear brake bridge, chrome rear quarter and internal top tube cabling, looks nicely put together too.

From what I have read, it seems Concorde frames of this era were built by either Ciocc or Billato in Italy. Not sure how to tell which is which, do those built by Ciocc have the Italian flag emblem on the top tube and/or the Ciocc style cut out emblem in the bottom bracket shell ?

This frame has neither, so I'm assuming this was built by Bilato, but I could be wrong and would be interested if anybody can shed more light on this.

I was told originally when the frame set was purchased, it had been built up with a complete Shimano 105SC 1055 Groupset, and what was left were original components. Can't say for sure if that is true or not, but it does seem plausable.

Not all of the 105SC Groupset was there, had survived and was salvageable. I was left with the; bottom bracket, front and rear derailleurs, crank set and chain rings, down tube shifters and brake callipers. All of which have a date code of P which equates to 1992.

As for the age of the frame, I can't be sure, this paint scheme wasn't available in the 1993 catalogue which is in the RetoBike Archive, as all of the supposedly original 105SC parts had a date code P, 1992, I'm aiming a guess at 1991/2 for the frame, although it could be earlier, if anyone knows how to date a Concorde frame from its number, I'd be interested to know.

There is a supplying shop decal on the non drive side chainstay "HAUTEKEETE".

I have tracked it down to Christiaan Hautekeete, a cycling specialist shop in Oost-Vlaanderen Belgium which has been in business since 1983;

Fietsen Hautekeete
Spoorweglaan 6
9880 Aalter
Oost-Vlaanderen
België

http://www.fietsenhautekeete.be

Interestingly, or not, depending on your point of view, in 1993 the Concorde Mistral frame set cost 995.00 Guilders, the Guilder to Sterling exchange rate was 0.35 in 1993, so that is approx £350. Inflation from 1993 to 2017 is 91.9%, so in today's money, that would be approx £670 for the frame set.

 

[NeilM]

Re:

Where Concorde's were made is still a circular discussion. Certainly the high end bikes had an Italian flag emblem on the top tube but don't let that fool you into thinking the Mistral is a poor relation, I have an earlier 1989 Astore made of Aelle R and it is a really comfortable ride. I also have a 1990 Basso Gap and the similarity in fittings and contraction of the two frames leads me to believe they could easily be related.

I would say there is a good chance that your frame came from the Bilato Bros. Although catalogues just tend to say something like Northern Europe.

The 105 build sounds great, I look forward to seeing how it all comes out.

 

[allenh]

Re: Re:

Where Concorde's were made is still a circular discussion. Certainly the high end bikes had an Italian flag emblem on the top tube but don't let that fool you into thinking the Mistral is a poor relation, I have an earlier 1989 Astore made of Aelle R and it is a really comfortable ride. I also have a 1990 Basso Gap and the similarity in fittings and contraction of the two frames leads me to believe they could easily be related.

I would say there is a good chance that your frame came from the Bilato Bros. Although catalogues just tend to say something like Northern Europe.

The 105 build sounds great, I look forward to seeing how it all comes out.

I also had a Astore a while back, early 90's from memory but a nice thing all the same and if it hadn't been too small for me I would have kept it.