Vintage French randonneuer's and porteurs.

And, there is a Barra hanging up in a little workshop/second hand bike shop in South London (or at least was a year or two ago) - I asked, it wasn't for sale.
 
Rod_Saetan said:
I've seen, refurbished, sold whatever loads of French bikes over the years, and I would roughly put them into two camps: mass-produced by one of the big brands = annoying, poorly executed, badly finished and hugely overbuilt; handbuilt in a small shop with a real persons name on the downtube = marvellous, beautifully made and finished, always worth the time and money to fix them up.

Its reductive I know, and only my opinion but I never want to try and 'renovate;' a 1970s mid-range Peugeot ever again.

I have one Frenchie, which I bought from down the road as it was pretty cheap and had a pair of Phil Wood hubs on it, after collecting it from the eBay seller and having a chat and then riding it 3 miles home it was clear I'd be keeping it! It was built for her in the mid 80s by a shop called Rando Cycles in Paris, she was told that they often got other builders to produce their frames and allegedly this was built by Berthoud. It is a classic lugged touring frame with BSC headset and BB and is the *perfect* size for me, because of its 00s horrible thick powder coat and no decals it became a commuter/child carrier though, but it will get a rebuild at some point in the future.
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As Confucius once said...to learn what is good one must first experience evil!
Problem with french bikes they mostly all have that thing that makes you go hmmmm nice..😆
 
@Woz as I understand it randonneuring is light fast touring. The modern term seems to be credit card touring. The Japanese call using a train rinko I think. There are some lovely bikes that are de mountable for the purpose.
 
@Rod_Saetan
Dunno. My Liberia frameset is reasonably well made (better than my Italian frame, and almost on par with Bob Jackson when it comes to attention to detail) and comes in at acceptable 3.2kg with braze-ons, despite not being an artisan build.
I'd say my pal's top of the line Stella frameset workmanship is on par with anything else, yet again it's a "factory built" bike.
 
Rod_Saetan said:
I've seen, refurbished, sold whatever loads of French bikes over the years, and I would roughly put them into two camps: mass-produced by one of the big brands = annoying, poorly executed, badly finished and hugely overbuilt; handbuilt in a small shop with a real persons name on the downtube = marvellous, beautifully made and finished, always worth the time and money to fix them up.

Its reductive I know, and only my opinion but I never want to try and 'renovate;' a 1970s mid-range Peugeot ever again.

I have one Frenchie, which I bought from down the road as it was pretty cheap and had a pair of Phil Wood hubs on it, after collecting it from the eBay seller and having a chat and then riding it 3 miles home it was clear I'd be keeping it! It was built for her in the mid 80s by a shop called Rando Cycles in Paris, she was told that they often got other builders to produce their frames and allegedly this was built by Berthoud. It is a classic lugged touring frame with BSC headset and BB and is the *perfect* size for me, because of its 00s horrible thick powder coat and no decals it became a commuter/child carrier though, but it will get a rebuild at some point in the future.
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Well now I'm completely disillusioned, been restoring Pugsey my 1960 PX10 , now it's off too the tip..🤣

Thread '1960 Peugeot PX10.' https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/1960-peugeot-px10.374551/

2018-04-26_09-10-15.jpg
 
Guinessisgoodforyou said:
@Woz as I understand it randonneuring is light fast touring. The modern term seems to be credit card touring. The Japanese call using a train rinko I think. There are some lovely bikes that are de mountable for the purpose.
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I just googled rando....french word for "hike"
So more than a stiff walk but not a march!?
 
Rod_Saetan said:
Its reductive I know, and only my opinion but I never want to try and 'renovate;' a 1970s mid-range Peugeot ever again.
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Couldn't agree more.

I've seen and touched so many of these, and all the knock-offs, and all the re-branded ones with the famous cyclist name of the day, they IMHO are not worth it; for someone else. Today, I just go to the head badge first, if the name is obscure, I'll dig deeper and see if the frame is well crafted and take note of the parts. We need to bare in mind a lot of these find themselves on the market where the inheritance are basically dealing with them, and if they know little about bikes they will just set a very low or mid price just to get rid of them and move on. A French oddity is selling houses that are full of the previous owners junk and personal items, it's here the new owner will most likely not have the time or will power to bother with an old bike - hopefully they call up the charity store for a house clearance job, otherwise, it's the tip.
 
Woz said:
Couldn't agree more.

I've seen and touched so many of these, and all the knock-offs, and all the re-branded ones with the famous cyclist name of the day, they IMHO are not worth it; for someone else. Today, I just go to the head badge first, if the name is obscure, I'll dig deeper and see if the frame is well crafted and take note of the parts. We need to bare in mind a lot of these find themselves on the market where the inheritance are basically dealing with them, and if they know little about bikes they will just set a very low or mid price just to get rid of them and move on. A French oddity is selling houses that are full of the previous owners junk and personal items, it's here the new owner will most likely not have the time or will power to bother with an old bike - hopefully they call up the charity store for a house clearance job, otherwise, it's the tip.
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Yes I know what you mean about buying a house lock stock barrel ....
This looks like that...caught my eye this morning...there's a couple there could be a bit hmmmmm bit old...🤨 And lots of headsets 😁
Doubt it's near you ...

 
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Mickeyspinn said:
I just googled rando....french word for "hike"
So more than a stiff walk but not a march!?
Click to expand...

Looked at the English Wikipedia entry, but it's not really answering and satisfying my curious observation; need to scout for old photographs and check some French definitions and sites...
 
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