As I have never introduced my old vintage bike frame, I want to do it now: Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you my bike frame from the late 70s, by the french brand Motobécane, made of Reynolds tubes.
It has been remodeled in the middle of the 80s by a frame maker, Heinz Paupitz, in the Berlin borough of Wedding, where it got a paint job. At the time it was really cool with a Shimano 600 brake set and tubular tires. And it still is cool.
I still love it, even though my Father-in-law has vandalized it, when I left it with him, by changing the original handle bar and exchanged it against a different high whatever thing, which was totally out of whack, it looked a bit like this one:
Currently I have a not very satisfying replacement bar, but I think I’m going to search for an old wide handle bar with the engraving “la Technique d’Avion appliquée au Deux Roues” (Aviation Technology applied to two wheels) on it, as the original one had.
Because the bike has tubular tires they are narrow and glide like a dream. One kick in the pedals and you just float through the landscape and everything is very easy.
The gearshift though, because it’s quite aged, has to be handled with care. So it is a little funky to ride on it, but if it’s not competitive and you are enjoying the landscape – it’s just very nice.
I don’t know why, but I very much like the chrome front fork of it too. Nothing crazy, but a nice extra.
And, I almost forgot, the Brooks saddle: also roughly thirty years old, heavy, but sits very comfortably! I assume it is the Team Pro Special.
Here it is, Ladies and Gentlemen, my old Motobécane frame:
