Hello -- Here's my Gitane -- is it a 1971 Super Corsa?

[TruedWill]

Hello there. This is a great site. I stumbled upon you while trying to figure out the identity of a bike a bought.

A little about me. I live in Los Angeles, teach philosophy, and volunteer at a local bike coop. I have slowly acquire a great appreciation for vintage bikes and started keeping my eyes open for quality vintage bikes. This one presented itself though an estate sale

But it's stickers are gone, so I am not even sure this is a Gitane. Based on the info on this site I now believe it is a 19070-'71 Super Corsa. Pretty cool if true.

I hope I posted pictures correctly. Anyway, the bike seems to me to have the tell tale features of the Super Corsa -- campy headset, dropouts, fork crown -- and it seems to have the rounded seat stays that would make it about 1971.

I have no idea if the parts are original, but the rear derailleur is Patent 70, which fits. The Shimano barcons are unlikely original, and the Record hubs are laced to some Matrix rim, so definitely not original there. Don't know about the saddle, but it is pretty old.

Any thoughts, info, corrections would be greatly welcomed. Any idea if the paint is original?

Thanks for the wealth of info on this board -- it was fun trying to figure it out.




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[verktyg]

Hello there. This is a great site. I stumbled upon you while trying to figure out the identity of a bike a bought.

But it's stickers are gone, so I am not even sure this is a Gitane. Based on the info on this site I now believe it is a 19070-'71 Super Corsa. Pretty cool if true.

I hope I posted pictures correctly. Anyway, the bike seems to me to have the tell tale features of the Super Corsa -- campy headset, dropouts, fork crown -- and it seems to have the rounded seat stays that would make it about 1971.

I have no idea if the parts are original, but the rear derailleur is Patent 70, which fits. The Shimano barcons are unlikely original, and the Record hubs are laced to some Matrix rim, so definitely not original there. Don't know about the saddle, but it is pretty old.

Any thoughts, info, corrections would be greatly welcomed. Any idea if the paint is original?


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Welcome to the Forum.

I suspect that it's a late 1973 or early 1974 Olympic or Super Olympic model sold in the European market. The Super Corsa was the same bike but with a name change for the US market only.

(the US Olympic Committee may have wanted a licensing fee or something like that for the use of the word Olympic???)

Those style lugs with the cutouts didn't appear until ~1973. The frame has been repainted. It may have had the later style yellow decals.

It would have looked like this except with Campy dropouts instead of the Huret honeycomb dropouts pictured.



Bar ends were add-ons

[TruedWill]

Awesome! Thanks so much for the info. If they are the same bike, how can you tell it's the Euro model as opposed to the import? Did the cut out lugs appear in Europe first?

I'm going to clean it up tonight, put some rubber on the hoods, and hopefully try it out this weekend. Unfortunately, it is a bit big for me (it's about 57cm, and I normally ride 53-54) so I'm going to have to put a shorter stem on it. Besides that, I think I'll let it alone unless I can find some reasonable rims for the campy hubs. Did these bikes take 700 sew-ups originally? I'm probaly not going to put sew-ups, just wondering.

I looked again at the threads with info on the Super Corsa / Olympic and I see that the stays have the swagged tips, so that is post '71.

According to the cut outs on the lugs, this is at earliest a '73, but it seems to have the Nervex professional fork crown. Does that make it some kind of cross over model, with an earlier fork and a later built frame?

Cheers

[verktyg]

Awesome! Thanks so much for the info. If they are the same bike, how can you tell it's the Euro model as opposed to the import? Did the cut out lugs appear in Europe first?

I'm going to clean it up tonight, put some rubber on the hoods, and hopefully try it out this weekend. Unfortunately, it is a bit big for me (it's about 57cm, and I normally ride 53-54) so I'm going to have to put a shorter stem on it. Besides that, I think I'll let it alone unless I can find some reasonable rims for the campy hubs. Did these bikes take 700 sew-ups originally? I'm probaly not going to put sew-ups, just wondering.

I looked again at the threads with info on the Super Corsa / Olympic and I see that the stays have the swagged tips, so that is post '71.

According to the cut outs on the lugs, this is at earliest a '73, but it seems to have the Nervex professional fork crown. Does that make it some kind of cross over model, with an earlier fork and a later built frame?

Cheers

The more that I think about your frame the more that I suspect that it's not a stock standard Gitane.

For starters, the lugs have been thinned (points filed down) plus Gitane didn't start using cutout lugs until 1974. The ones that they used at the time were different than on your bike. The fork appears to be off of an earlier bike - before 1972.

Bocama Lugs:



Prugnat lugs:







Nervex Dubois fork crowns used by Gitane from ~1972 until 1976.






Also, the seat stay tops have been reworked. Who ever repainted the bike may have done a lot of file work on the frame???




Another possibility, the bike was crashed and repaired with a new top tube, down tube, head tube and lugs. It a lot of work but I've seen it done to rare high end bikes.

[TruedWill]

This turns out to be a more challenging puzzle that I expected. I definitely see what you mean about the filing of the lugs. I looked at a bunch of pictures on this website and I only saw one other that looked filed, and not to the same degree, so that is certainly unusual.

One idea is that the frame is a later model than the fork. The fact that the lugs have cutouts is perplexing if Gitane didn't use that until '74. However, if I followed your point about the lugs, the lugs on my bike are from Prugnat, whereas by '74 it appears Gitane used Bocama. So even with cutouts the lugs aren't right for '74.

So, my lugs being Prugnat actually matches the early model fork crown, and the two together suggests 1971; as in your posted TdF: http://gitaneusa.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... ht=olympic

So, if the lugs and fork crown match, and the only thing that seems wrong is the extent of the filing and the cutouts in the lugs, it seems to me that an equally plausible answer is that it is actually an unusual '71 but that it happened to be made by someone who took the time to cut out the lugs.

I followed up this idea that the lugs were hand cut before building, and it turns out that the lugs' cutouts are not symmetrical. Now, I am sure that is possible from pre-brazing filing, but on the other hand, admitting I do not know much about construction of bikes in 1971, it seems to me that lugs would have been cast with symmetrical cutouts. The fact that mine are imperfect suggest the cutouts are hand cut, and that the bike is really ~'71 that for whatever reason was simply filed and cut differently. A to-order or custom made (Super) Olympic, maybe?

Your insights is much appreciated.

David
Los Angeles