Late 40s / Early 50s René Herse tip find

[Woz]

This is a fascinating thread.
What a cool bike. It’s great that it was saved from the scrapper.

Is there much of a bike industry left in France? I.e. independent frame builders etc?

Yes. BITD / vintage / ancient count about 400+ builders, with a top 20 or so. Today, about a dozen or so for national handbuilt.

 

[Woz]

Oh man, the pleasure to have this rolling again

 

[Jonny69]

I spent some time teaching my 6 year old how to do skids on this, yesterday (it does good skids despite the awkward brake lever positions and the trad Michelins leave excellent black lines). Me, him and my 2 year old on her balance bike then went on a mini bicycle adventure and ended up at the playground in the local park. I think the local parents couldn’t quite get their heads around my tiny kids on their bikes and me rolling in on something that looks like I’d fished out the river 40 years ago.

Looking forward to commuting on it tomorrow. Will be interesting to see how it copes with the state of the roads around here. I’ll take it easy in the traffic because the brakes haven’t bedded in yet (and they’re not the easiest levers to grab) but I’ll get on it as best I can on the open road and see what it’s like at speed. I think vintage French gear is in order. Meubles Sandra but not Lejeune BP.

 

[Imwit]

Looking forward to commuting on it tomorrow. Will be interesting to see how it copes with the state of the roads around here. I’ll take it easy in the traffic because the brakes haven’t bedded in yet (and they’re not the easiest levers to grab) but I’ll get on it as best I can on the open road and see what it’s like at speed. I think vintage French gear is in order. Meubles Sandra but not Lejeune BP.

How DO you grab the brakes if you are on the drops?

I’ve got the same levers on my velo de ville but with porteur bars although it wouldn’t have been like that originally. From what I’ve seen, that style of levers are meant for drop bars but they don’t seem all that practical.

 

[Imwit]

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[Jonny69]

How DO you grab the brakes if you are on the drops?

You can’t!

They’re kind of in the wrong place for everything. Holding the bars at the top, the clamps and pivots are where your thumbs want to go round the bars, so you can’t get a very good pull on the levers. On the sides where you’d normally be on the hoods, the lever is a long way down and you have to sort of stretch your fingers down and get hold of them with your little finger and ring finger. Then in the middle, the cables are all crossed up where they clash with each other and the loop through the stem to the front brake sits against the bars where you want to hold them.

If the bike is a Campeur, I can see the advantage to having no brake levers sticking out the front. You’d be able to load the front rack up all round the bars and nothing would get in the way of the brake levers.

I’d like to rotate them round a bit so they’re closer to the bars, but I can’t get the screws undone. I doubt they’re stuck, it the curse of the slotted screws with extra slim slots. I’ll need to get the bars off and clamp them down so I can really lean on the driver.

 

[Jonny69]

It coped just fine on the commute. 48x18 has made a massive difference and it flies along. The only thing that lets it down is the brakes, but, like with any older vehicle, you just adjust the way you drive/ride accordingly.

 

[dirttorpedo]

First ride then. I took it into Staines and a couple of miles down the towpath. Gearing set on 48x20.

So it’s not a fast bike. What do I mean by that? It doesn’t take a lot to push it along, but it doesn’t want to go fast. It’s not like my 1938 Parkes which is springy and zips along. It’s happier just ambling along at a steady pace. It’s quite difficult to haul around when out the saddle, but this might just be the short stem and shape of the bars.

Steering feels quite old fashioned - it’s got that 26” roadster feel about it. I guess a contributor to how this feels this is the short stem and very narrow bars. I wouldn’t call it nimble like my Parkes is, but it feels perfectly sure-footed flying round roundabouts at speed. It soaks up the bumps extremely well.

So all in, I could see this being a pretty pleasant ride once loaded up and making use of the gearing, just pedalling along at a sensible pace.

The 48x20 gear was a bit too twiddly for me and it was cross-chaining ever so slightly and occasionally catching a tooth on the freewheel. When I got back I swapped it down one to 48x18 which is closer to the gearing I normally ride (about 72gi) and the chainline is improved. It definitely made a difference to the ride quality too.

So next on the list is to see what I can do to sort out the derailleur and reinstate the gears. After I’ve had a bit of a ride though.

View attachment 854637

Any idea what the fork rake is on the frame? Wondering it might be low trail and that might contribute to the ride feel.

 

[Woz]

I’d like to rotate them round a bit so they’re closer to the bars, but I can’t get the screws undone. I doubt they’re stuck, it the curse of the slotted screws with extra slim slots. I’ll need to get the bars off and clamp them down so I can really lean on the driver.

|An old blunt chisel and pair of pliers for this madness of narrow low depth slots. I suspect in this early day, too much influence from furniture making and wood working made it's may into the evolution of the bicycle. The last thing is to bodge, force and chew up something.

Have faith, keeps the French torch alive and burning

 

[Woz]

Not to mention, I think @Jonny69 is doing everything right here. I've been here long enough to see the impulse to go straight for decoration / finition / tarty ness about frames. He his keeping a sound level head with this tip find. And learning a lot.

Nothing is won or lost until (except putting in some time wrenching investment and critical parts to actually get a understanding of what you acquired) and marking a key check point early "is it worth it?" Do I actually want this in my fleet and will it give me something?

You only get an answer about these type of builds by getting it rolling again, going to basics, and sitting on the blessed thing
and going from A to B. If it suits, game on. It's a treasure. It's RH for free. If it doesn't suit, pass the project on to someone else.