French Barn Find - Buckets of Patina!

[26er]

I'm tootling around the village on a 26" with a 36T x 19T which is perfect, so I had better man-up when the De Dion get's rolling!

Yo, case manning-up will show too hard there's some period help available...

:xmas-wink:

 

[Sir Walter]

I rode the 54t x 18t set up until I had a major heart related op in early 2016 but have kept up with the cycling, the 54t ring is now in temporary retirement and have fitted a 48t ring on since to give my Heart rate an easier time, I love riding this machine !
I have considered riding it with fixed but the Bottom bracket shells and axle has a little headache now and could do with a birthday gift.
Original wheel rims and hubs are quite hard to come by, nearly every other one I have seen is missing them, a dealer here in the South East (not Colin) had one for sale as a path racer without the original hub/rims for £2000 !!!
Pedal cranks, Brake calipers and if you are lucky pedals are all etched/engraved with De Dion Bouton.
I do a bit of bicycle work for Colin Kirsch as he is a friend of mine, he kindly gifted me some Vietnamese tyres for mine they are also hard to find and a bitch to fit. One of my other prized possessions that came on one of the bikes is an original Michelin tyre, I rode on it for a short ride but it started to de laminate so I removed it to preserve it.

I have a 1911 brochure somewhere showing the product range, brakes were an option but most came with a leather tool kit, I have a couple of different ones embossed with the De Dion Logo, original tools are rare and expensive and get snapped up by the car guys.
The brand was taken over post war by a company called Dilecta identified by the leblanc head badge, I have one of these also, all the originals were built at Puteaux Paris

We really are in the wilderness with these cycles as there is very little written about them compared to the De Dion Bouton cars and the early motorised trike. There is a bit of info on Ton Ton Velo depending on how good your French is, or how french your wife is, mine is from Rouen in Normandy !
I will endeavour to take some pics and post them when I get the time, I am no authority on these bikes but having owned a few of them over the years I have gained some knowledge through research and observation.

Salut Barry

 

[Woz]

Great Barry! Looking forward to more.

I've spent obscene time on the net trying to find info. and obscene time wearing out wire brushes! All fun, but progress is so slow.

I too will try to make an update and post more pictures. Funny you mention hubs, a while ago a pair of vintage Peugeot wheels went for an absolute fortune on Ebay - the wheels were in a right sorry state, the rims were barely held together; full of rust holes and the size of rims was unknown - with my amateur eye I could only guess the buyers got excited about what appeared to be extremely early in-house made Peugeot hubs.

 

[Woz]

......hoping I don't have too much wine tonight and remember this and get carried away on Ebay.

 

[26er]

...and obscene time wearing out wire brushes!

Wire brushes... :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:

This is how you do it these days:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry-ice_blasting

It's kind to old metal and leaves no trace.

 

[Woz]

A true conversation piece found while surfing the vintage forums.....

Imagine that parked outside the cafe in front of all the 12 sprocket carbon fibre Dura-Ace Di2.

 

[Peachy!]

What???????? :shock:

How on earth does that work and what's it supposed to be achieving? :?

 

[Woz]

What???????? :shock:

How on earth does that work and what's it supposed to be achieving? :?

I don't know, but I want one! I could loose days if not weeks in the man-cave fiddling and trying to understand it!

 

[Woz]

.....and when you have mastered that, you can upgrade to this:

 

[Woz]

.....notice something very strange with the left (almost said NDS :facepalm: ) chain stay :!: :shock: