This is flawed but I think its still stunning, an early 30s Pitard. An excellent story and a mission to disect and make readable. Translation below
Hello,
Brought back today from the west coast of Cotentin, a region where people believe in the virtues of grease and paint to preserve metal objects (you'll see on the pictures), this Pitard randonneuse, which obviously dates from the "balloonist" period of the brand, the mudguards are 70mm wide. The tyres currently mounted on it, and which seem to be very thin, are however 37mm wide, so we'll have to find the chubbiest 650 to find the original silhouette!
I'm not going to dwell on the Pitard brand, already well presented in the forum by people more knowledgeable than me, according to the address on the plate, it was manufactured between 1926 and 1937, it's the grandfather of the seller (who is now well into his seventies) who bought it new. Given the headstock, I'd say between 1930 and 1935, but some details don't fit, 45 mm pulley on the cyclo derailleur for example.... rather late 30's than early, but it could have been changed one day.
I've only ridden it a few times, because the saddle is tired, it's heavy and massive, no play, no noise...in short, the quiet robustness of unbreakable objects.
Just a few details on this case:
It's a 60 X 60 frame with huge chainstays of 485mm, the 3 gears of the derailleur are quite far apart from each other, if you can distinguish the teeth under their grease. The length of the luggage rack and the drum brakes are reminiscent of a camping bike, which is consistent with the presumed cross-section of the original tyres.
There are also brake posts, but they are too high to fit a cantilever, so they are more suitable for Jeay brakes. The rear mudguard is isolated from the frame by leather strips. As a further refinement, the Berko logo is engraved in frosted glass on the headlight window.
A small bracket brazed to the right fork leg to put a speedometer or odometer on.
I'll start disassembling and cleaning it when I get back to work, I just removed a wheel nut to try to read the serial number, but I couldn't decipher it all...it ends with 777, I'll take pictures once the bike is disassembled. Apart from the necessary cleaning, I'll have to put some rivets on the seat, fit an ED speedo (which I have, but not the right bracket) and seriously take care of the pedals which are really bad. I'll also have to dig out the manufacturer's logo, which is still faintly visible on the down tube, buried under a green paint patch, that's going to be tricky. A beautiful Erpelding handlebar. ROD rubber grips are not original and will turn.
I wonder about the small tail light cap which seems more recent? In fact everything depends on the exact age of the bike, pre-dural period probably, but for the rest. The best dating clue would probably be the dynamo and the light before Berko.
To finish this short presentation, I would like to thank the seller with whom I had concluded the deal on Wednesday, and who has been offered in the meantime more than 3 times the asking price (and a bike as a bonus) to sell it to "a Parisian collector who was missing a Pitard. In fact, when I left him, I could feel that the banknotes I had seen were still fluttering before his eyes. Yet he didn't crack. Many thanks for this scrupulous honesty!
The tension spring of the cyclo derailleur turned out to be a cleverly recycled architect's lamp spring... unfortunately it's a bit soft and that's why the chain is hanging a bit on the previous pictures. So change it, I've got one in storage, no worries.
The balls are no longer round. For the moment I have cleaned, re-greased and reassembled the whole thing, I will just have to change the balls.
As for the developments: chainring 46, sprockets 16, 24 and 32. With 55 balls, this gives about 3.1 m, 4.15 m and 6.2 m. Plausible range for flatland riding, but the middle gear seems a bit small (although, considering the weight... and I really want there to have been 6 gears on this bike one day. I haven't seen anything to suggest that there was ever a front derailleur, even one held by a collar. The two cranks are not identical, who is the odd one out?
The crank on the drive side has a non-rectangular section. By the way, you can see that I've fitted the chubbyest tyres possible... 57mm! Well, it fits in the mudguards, but the outside diameter is now that of a 700 wheel. The tyre profile is not that of a road bike, but the treads are quite discreet.
The seat is a Brown No. 69. Tomorrow I'll finish cleaning it and ride it a bit.
I did the minimum of modifications to be able to ride with it: a changed saddle because on the original supply the leather rotted around the steel rivets, 57-584 tyres at 700 gr each (which are strangely "only" 50 mm wide, but fill the mudguards correctly), classic pump and panniers equipment and a luggage box at the rear, a real Cyclo derailleur spring. ... and here I am at 20kg 5 measured with a suitcase scale (so precision +/- 500 gr), but the order of magnitude is there.
The drum brakes are very heavy but clearly it's not lightweight tubing!
In fact since your PM I have looked at the bike with a different eye and indeed it is not custom made: frame that can take 700 tyres, see the stacking of leather shims on the rear mudguard, gear range not very adapted to the terrain, not very graceful path of the front brake cable which is held in place by two clamps, horrible notch in the rear mudguard to pass the chain, one would say that a double chainring was mounted at one time but that originally it was not made for that, it was thus necessary to trim the fender but that was not done in a way worthy of a craftsman of the cycle. So yes, the frame is generic and therefore loses much of the soul of the brand.
What to conclude?
The main thing is that I like it with its Ford T headlight, it's nice to ride with those tyres and it's my size! The general look is nicely old-fashioned, but the Erpelding handlebars left a group of gravellers perplexed when they met them between Dinan and Dinard as they looked so much like theirs.
As for the genesis of the bike, I don't know: Pitard who decided to make a half-series bike to increase his clientele? (A kind of federal randonneuse from the 30's, and still the federal randonneuses had a series of light steel frames), a broke customer? Refitting of a prestigious frame plate by a bicycle dealer? The connection of the seat stays on the seat tube is however characteristic.
As far as dating is concerned, I found a Berko catalogue from 1933, not the same headlight but the dynamo is the same. From 1937 it changed.
Berko Starklicht-Dynamo Werbeblatt.
There is a rear light on this bike, the law making them compulsory dates from 1930 and was applicable in July 1933, Louis Pitard worked at this address until 1936... that's a conjunction of clues that place it in the mid 30's.
I will continue to try and get the down tube logo out. At first I thought it had received a coat of green paint and just had to scrape it off, which I did with steel wool, but so far it is still green. Having noticed that this bike has been regularly painted during its existence, I wonder if the turpentine has dissolved the colour of the logo, in which case nothing should be touched! A few shots of the bike with 50mm tyres.
While waiting to receive some parts to continue the restoration, I took a closer look at Louis Pitard, and by chance, the Audax Club Parisien website put an article on the Pitard couple last month.
I have extracted an article published in La Pédale in September 1927, where Louis Pitard calmly recounts his 200 km brevet, accomplished on a machine with balloon tyres and 3 speeds. The aim of the article seems to be to promote the benefits of big tyres, but the passage gleaned some technical information: on the one hand the reading of the range of developments is edifying (no doubt, Louis Pitard had good legs!), on the other hand the order of magnitude of the weight is in line with my machine (his 18kg "only", but probably there were no drum brakes).
No one can explain the Pitard frame numbering these days so let's stick to hypotheses.
So what are we talking about? I found a bike signed Pitard but you can see that the serial number is suspiciously high for a craftsman, that it's a generic 650/700 frame, on which you can mount Jeay brakes or others if you like, that there are "only" 3 gears and that the whole thing is noticeably heavier than a good 6 speed of the time. There is a very nice example of a Pitard bicycle of this model in the beautiful book "Vélos de France" page 30, it weighs 17 kg but has neither drum brakes, nor XXL luggage rack. The luggage rack is the same model as the one on Jacques Le Voyageur's machine, with the same characteristic crossed tubes.
Here you have the description of another machine of the same type, that of G Grillot, which dates from the end of the 20s.
These are premium Pitards, as we would say nowadays...the difference with my machine is real.
For me, the use of a frame potentially made outside, is simply the solution of the time to compress the prices. The fork is also not "pure Pitard", it is exactly the same as on my Air Léger (because of the drums maybe?). So I remain on my initial impression: it is in a way the "federal tourer" concept of L. Pitard, made from mass-produced elements (small series maybe), but not tailor-made for its owner by optimizing mass and dimensions. The concept of the modern federal randonneuse is a bit different (sober decoration, serious but accurate equipment, on the other hand no concession on the quality of the frame which constitutes the heart of the reactor) but the aim is the same: to make the price drop to reach the most potential buyers.
That doesn't prevent me from having mounted some good components: I was finally able to date my front headlight (thanks to the forum thanks to the online publication of a 1932 Eriol catalogue).
