BoTM April 2021 nominations now invited

[Once A Hero]

What a cracking trio of entrants so far!

 

[thekidmalone]

thekidmalone's 1992 Cycles Berthoud





Submitted for your approval is a long term project of mine, which I finally made rideable over the winter, if not quite yet reaching my original goal of building un VTT avec 100% fabrication français.

I discovered my personal breaking point whilst attempting to sand & grind away the inner surfaces of a metric, 28.0mm front derailleur clamp to fit an imperial, 28.6mm seat tube. P\_/T41N M3RD3, it's meant to be a FUN BIKE! Oh well, Simplex wasn't famous for delivering exactly what they said on their tin mechs.

In any case, as a fan of fillet-brazed construction and gradient fades between lurid paint colours, how could I resist when the opportunity arose to acquire one of Cycles Berthoud's creations in my size. I'm looking forward to adding some natural, brown & green splatter effect soon, but not to riding these tyres, upon which the tread rubber cracked immediately upon inflation during initial installation. Thankfully, I know where I can source some new treads for this old sled.

And for those of you who enjoy bikes devoid of Shimano content, I'm your huckleberry this month.


Enjoy!

Terrance

 

[nporternz]

only 4 bikes so far this month and all of them are really nice!!

 

[raidan73]

@thekidmalone I love that Simplex gear. I regret not buying on of the nos gearsets when they were on ebay a couple of years ago.

Some very nice steeds already!

 

[Stressed]

That Marin TT is lovely
Brakes beg the question: why use one cable pulley where you can use three

 

[nporternz]

That Marin TT is lovely
Brakes beg the question: why use one cable pulley where you can use three

over engineered to hell but dam they look fine

 

[thekidmalone]

@thekidmalone I love that Simplex gear. I regret not buying on of the nos gearsets when they were on ebay a couple of years ago.

Some very nice steeds already!

That’s precisely where I picked up the FUN BIKE parts used on this build.

Any theories regarding what I should now store inside the plastic briefcase in which the Simplex components were originally packaged? Lucien Charles Hippolyte Juy’s soul, perhaps?

 

[trailwright]

thekidmalone's 1992 Cycles Berthoud

View attachment 534827

View attachment 534828

Submitted for your approval is a long term project of mine, which I finally made rideable over the winter, if not quite yet reaching my original goal of building un VTT avec 100% fabrication français.

I discovered my personal breaking point whilst attempting to sand & grind away the inner surfaces of a metric, 28.0mm front derailleur clamp to fit an imperial, 28.6mm seat tube. P\_/T41N M3RD3, it's meant to be a FUN BIKE! Oh well, Simplex wasn't famous for delivering exactly what they said on their tin mechs.

In any case, as a fan of fillet-brazed construction and gradient fades between lurid paint colours, how could I resist when the opportunity arose to acquire one of Cycles Berthoud's creations in my size. I'm looking forward to adding some natural, brown & green splatter effect soon, but not to riding these tyres, upon which the tread rubber cracked immediately upon inflation during initial installation. Thankfully, I know where I can source some new treads for this old sled.

And for those of you who enjoy bikes devoid of Shimano content, I'm your huckleberry this month.


Enjoy!

Terrance

Wow! Those tyres brought back some memories from long ago. They're really not very good off-road unfortunately. Great build though. Simplex road gear down tube shifters have the same pain in the ass idiosyncrasy in that a file has to be taken to Shimano cable end to get them to fit into an ever so slightly narrower recess.

 

[zygote2k]

I’d like to nominate my 83 Ritchey Competition for
BOTM.
I’m the second owner, the first rode it a few times and then hung it up in his shop for 37 years.
It had a hodgepodge of catalog spec parts but no overall focus.
I decided to black it out with all 83 catalog spec parts minus tires, grips, and Matthauser pads.

 

[raidan73]

Well that’s just lovely! Huge but lovely