French Barn Find - Buckets of Patina!

[Woz]

A bit more about brakes - or lack off. It appears that De Dion - Bouton early bikes and standard models essentially had no brakes; fixed gear only. I presume the standard models were aimed towards more "Blue Collar" folk.

When the De Dion - Bouton model line-up was expanding brakes were offered on "Luxury" models
along with mudguards and chain guard. Seems like all the "road race" bikes however never had brakes.

So there we have it. Not getting covered in shit and oil plus being able to stop (slow down) was considered a
luxury which the gentleman would pay for. The poor and racer boys would go fixed, and join the LFGSS forum

Newspaper adverts from 1912 and 1921, without and with brakes.

 

[Peachy!]

This is such a different and interesting thread Woz. Proper job.

 

[Woz]

Thanks chaps for all your appreciative comments. I'm normally on the muddy side of the moon, but do like to
pop in the road section a fair bit being initially a roady in my teens.

First road build thread for me - best I make a positive impact because in general the quality and critique of
builds in the road section is rather high. Dare I say you lot are a bunch of sticklers? There's
probably other forums more suited to vintage French tat, but what the hell; most people here appreciate all sorts
of old bikes from any corner of the globe.

The circumstances around the find, the collection of bike parts, the bygone age and of course a massive overdose
in French "je ne sais quoi" is fascinating and worth sharing. A side from wrenching details, I'll post up snippets
of things I find on the way. Still really don't know where this is heading but the journey may prove better than
the arrival.

 

[Woz]

The Saddle.....a before picture.

The original saddle on the De Dion - Bouton was in a such a sorry state it wasn't even worth being an ornament.

The saddle from Lot #1 looks like it can be salvaged and re-vitalised. There's a dollop of bird shit and claw marks
on it where it looks like a barn owl made a comfy perch and toilet out of it.

An oversized corn-flake is more supple and appealing to sit on at the moment. I'm hoping regular treatment with Neats Foot Oil will rejuvenate it enough because it looks the part for the bike. A few rivets will need re-addressing.

The saddle is embossed Rinol 32 but can't find anything on the web.

 

[Crambie]

Re:

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[Woz]

The Original Brake....just the one!

At first sight when I looked at the De Dion - Bouton I assumed it had been robbed of it's front brake. Since
looking at other period bikes I've found out that it was fairly normal just to have only one rear brake. We
all know by today's standard this is totally wrong - seems that slowing down rather than coming to a
controlled stop was not a priority for the early French bike engineers. :facepalm:

I wished I had taken a "before" picture of the rear caliper showing what was just a clump of rust. There's
been great progress in a way - it is the last moving part that now moves!

There's still some work remaining to clean them up. With plenty of elbow grease and the now worn out
wire brush I managed to make a positive identity, which also helps to date the bike.

The brakes are marked "Bowden Touriste" and "Breveté s.g.d.g"

What appears to be a "fish" logo on top of the calipers is in fact a loop of Bowden cable, but due to rust
the details are not crisp.

Essentially they are composed of two calipers, one for attaching to the frame, and the other for the
actual brake. I've read that the French only started attaching brakes to the fork crown and brake bridge
around the mid 1920s. I may be being unfair, but the whole thing just appears to be a cobbled up after-thought. :roll:

The return springs are just two independent small springs attached to the frame caliper and brake blocks. There is
no possibility to center the brakes except twisting bits of metal with long nose pliers. :facepalm: It doesn't
take much to figure out either that the whole thing will require regular oiling and days or if not weeks of
tweaking to get it right and settle.

These are all arse about face - the cable nipple end is at the caliper end and eventually I'll need to pluck-up
enough courage to undo a screw to get the nipple housing off as they didn't think about a slot.

 

[Woz]

The single brake lever was in an utter mess, but now it's cleaned up and functional. I spent literally hours with it.

Never before did one puny pressed steel brake lever demand so much attention, but they are not the same
as you would get on a child's bike or BSO that you wouldn't think twice about binning them.

 

[Woz]

As mentioned above, the cable nipple end is at the caliper. The open end of the cable is threaded through
a brass cable stop, then into a miniaturised ratcheted cable winch well hidden inside the brake lever. :shock:

Whoever came up with this design must have been inspired by heavy haulage, Swiss watch making and
far too much absinthe at lunch time. :facepalm:

There was so much rust, bits of nickel plating and excess cable around the tiny barrel the thing was solid. Now
it works and ticks like a dream. Clearly there must be a magic amount of cable length - not too short nor too long
and I reckon the best way is to do all the cable threading and tensioning with the lever off the handlebars so
you can see what the hell you are doing :!:

It's worth pointing out that if you accidentally press the little lever and release the ratchet you probably don't
have any brakes, but at a push they could be good to spread the calipers to get the rear wheel out - just
as long as you have a screw driver to tension the cable back :facepalm:

 

[The History Man]

Ingenious. As you say, the prelude to a ratchet strap? An elegant if over engineered solution. My brake cables have nipples at both ends so I couldn’t replace them or remove the outers.

 

[26er]

Re:

I dunno why but for some reason this thread makes me think of old thick french floorboards. Kinda weird...

:facepalm: :shock: :?: