Keri's Motobecane, Part 1

     My girlfriend Keri never really had a bicycle of her own as an adult until we moved to Tucson, Arizona.  Within a few weeks of relocating to the famously bicycle-friendly city, we snagged her a good deal off of Craigslist:  an old Motobecane mixte frame from the early '70's for only $75.  Someone along the line had converted the original ten-speed into a single-speed, thankfully keeping the original five-speed freewheel and just mounting the chain on the middle cog.  The bike also sported "chop n' flop" bullhorn bars, wrapped in bright pink tape and equipped with older, slightly odd mountain bike brake levers.  With plans to eventually return a derailleur to the bike to grant it gears, we bought it and Keri has greatly enjoyed the bike since then.

Keri and I on the Rillito River Path the day we bought it.  April 16, 2012

     One of the difficult things about buying a really old bike off of Craigslist is that it can sometimes be a real pain in the butt to get any information about the bicycle.  Things like what year, model, or sometimes even brand can be difficult to ascertain without a little luck or direction.  Keri's Motobecane doesn't say anywhere on the frame what model it is, and after a handful of somewhat impatient Google searches, I've discovered that most old Motobecane serial numbers hold no real information and are essentially a random array of numbers.  I was able to find some scans of old Motobecane catalogs from the early '70's though, and the bike is, by my best guess, a Grand Touring mixte frame from somewhere around 1972 or 1973.  While I feel very confident on its status as a Grand Touring, the year is honestly mostly a shot in the dark.  But it works for me.

     While Keri's bike is a means of transportation and a way to have fun for her, to me it is a fixer-upper.  I saw a lot I could do with the bike, and was excited at the prospect of customizing it to her desires.  Unfortunately, the cost of doing this has been beyond our budget for several months.  But in early November we decided to pull some funds together and get her bike one step toward her goal:  a fully equipped and fully geared commuters bike.

     But before this recent project, we did upgrade some parts of her bike:  namely the saddle and pedals.  The saddle that came with the bike was a ratty old Specialized saddle, probably from the late '90's or early 2000's by my best guess.  It wasn't very comfortable and looked awful, both as a saddle individually and on the bike itself.  After I told her that we could get cheap, colored saddles from Origin-8, we got her a bright pink Road Pro saddle.  The pedals that came with the bike were also some no-name old quill-style road pedals.  Keri was not a fan of them at all, especially with their nature of having to flip them to the appropriate side, so we got her some platform pedals.  Only normal platform pedals wouldn't cut it, so we went with the Odyssey Twisted PC pedals, in a lovely "grape" plastic color.  After the saddle and pedals came in, Keri was worried her bike was too colorful, but instead I feel it gives her bike some personality.

The Odyssey Twisted PC pedals and Origin-8 Road Pro saddle.  November 28, 2012

     The real fun starts here however.  Someone who had owned the bike before us (I don't believe it was the person we purchased it from) had given the bike "chop 'n flop" bullhorn handlebars.  "Chop 'n flop" is a common practice to get fully functional bullhorn handlebars by cutting most of the drops off of a standard drop-bar handlebar and flipping it upside down in the stem.  If done correctly, and it isn't that hard to do so, someone can get a set of admittedly narrow bullhorns.  I had actually done this on a bike I previously owned, and discovered my affinity for bullhorn handlebars.  Unfortunately, bullhorns are currently "claimed" by the hipsters and their fixed-gear bicycles, and I couldn't stand to equip my Fuji with bullhorns as I am trying to maintain the original aesthetic of the bike.  But, Keri liked her bullhorns quite a bit.  The problem was her brake levers:  to put it simply, they were not the ideal setup for bullhorn handlebars.

Note the cramped area between the brake levers.  This is not what we wanted.  November 7, 2012

     Bullhorn handlebars can essentially run with two style of brake levers:  cross levers, and tri levers.  Cross levers are, hence the name, usually found on cyclo-cross bikes (and touring bikes, in my experience) and serve the role as a secondary brake lever, mounted on the flat section of drop bars near the stem.  I call them interrupter levers, because they essentially interrupt the brake line and allow for a safe, secondary hand position.  They tend to be small and simple in design, and because of this, they tend to be the perfect brake lever for bullhorns.  Tri levers are somewhat similar to the traditional drop levers found on drop bars, except they mount in the upturned ends of the bullhorns and angle down.  As suggested by the name, they tend to be found on triathlon bikes, which tend to have bullhorn or aero handlebars.

An example of cross levers on a bare handlebar.  Taken from Google Image Search.

     The problem stemmed from the fact that Keri's brakes were tough to use; they required more force to pull than she was comfortable with.  Combine that with the fact that her brake pads were more than likely circa 1972 and barely functional, and you have a bike that is less safe than any sensible guy wants his girlfriend to ride.  So our project revolved around getting her better brakes and a better cockpit, or handlebars and controls.

An example of tri levers, installed into the ends of a set of bullhorn handlebars.  Taken from Google Image Search.

     Tri levers were out of the question for us because they tend to be expensive and high-performance, being associated with triathlons.  They also tend to work best with true bullhorn handlebars, not the "ghetto chop 'n flop" that Keri had.  Cross levers would have been a viable option, but there were two reasons that we ended up going with a set of old drop levers that I already owned:  we didn't have to buy them, and it would stay true to the aesthetic of the bike.

     Being a professional bike mechanic, I put a lot of new parts on a lot of bikes, and most of the time I do not put a lot of worry into maintaining any aesthetics.  My job mostly revolves around maintaining and building performance, so that a machine runs the best it can.  But my job, my current job as a mechanic at REI, has me dealing with modern bikes a lot more than my previous one.  I don't much care about how modern bikes look, they are all mass produced in Asia, which is fine, and aesthetically they are all incredibly similar.  Its in older bikes that I feel there there is something aesthetically to maintain.  And the older a bike is, the stronger I feel that is important.  I wasn't going to put a pair of SRAM TT 500 tri levers on a 1972 Motobecane, especially when I'd have to look at it everyday.

The "flop 'n chop" bullhorn bars previously on her bike.  November 7, 2012

     And so we decided to swap out her "chop 'n flop" bullhorn handlebars with a set of true drop bars, and equip her with proper drop levers.  I had a set of Dia-Compe C250G drop levers that I had taken off of one of my bikes.  They were in fine condition, barring slightly worn hoods.  The only other thing we needed were a set of drop bars.

     I have a set of drop bars that I acquired off of some bike... I can't really recall which one now.  But, there was a problem.  Being a Motobecane from the early '70's, the bike was made in France and uses some French standards--sizes that really don't appear elsewhere in the bike world.  The problem here was in the handlebars:  their clamp diameter was 25.0mm.  The "standard" found in most bikes of this style is 25.4mm, indeed the size of my extra pair of bars.  Although it is only 0.4 of a millimeter, it is enough to create an issue.  Even if I were to tighten the clamp bolt as tight as I could, the bars would still be able to slip, and that is not acceptable.  We had two options:  new handlebars, or a new stem.  We could get a new stem, but any modern stems wouldn't have the same aesthetic.  So we turned to eBay to find a size that doesn't exist anymore...

The vintage Motobecane drop bars we secured for Keri from eBay.  November 7, 2012

     A few trips to eBay yielded a terrific find:  a set of vintage Motobecane drop bars in the proper size, for a measly $25!  As we waited for the new bars to arrive, I had one last obstacle to tackle, the brake calipers themselves.  Center-pull dual pivot Weinmann calipers are one of my less favorite brake options out there, due mostly to the moderate difficulty it takes to set them up.  Instead of using the simple pinch-bolt that modern side-pull dual pivot brake calipers use, the older center-pull style uses a "yoke hanger", secured to the brake line, which supports and pulls on a smaller cable attached to the opposite ends of each arm of the brake caliper.  The problem I have with this design is that it is very difficult to adjust, you have to essentially eyeball where to secure the "yoke hanger" and then proceed to use trial and error to find the appropriate position.  With the proper tool--one that Park apparently doesn't make anymore--you can easily hold the calipers shut and it makes the job much easier, but we do not have this tool at work.

Keri's front brake.  Note the "yoke hanger" supporting the cable between the arms of the caliper.  November 7, 2012

     Aside from my disdain for this design, I was also looking for new calipers because I was wanting to someday upgrade Keri's wheel-set into a modern 700c wheel size; she is currently sporting the obsolete 27" size.  700c wheels are slightly smaller than 27" wheels, yet close enough that some brake calipers out there can actually work with either size.  These "long reach" calipers are what I put on my Fuji, because I did the exact same thing.  However, I soon discovered that Tektro doesn't make the calipers I bought anymore.  They still make a product that would work, but they are double the price of the ones I have now, and it is simply out of our price range.  I spent a lot of time trying on different calipers and trying to figure out which ones would work; aside from the reach of the brake arm, I also had to consider that her bike would need the "standard nut" mounting style instead of the "recessed nut" mounting style found on modern road bike frames. Eventually I decided that we would just keep her current brake calipers.  There was nothing wrong with them, and I could put them through the parts cleaner to hopefully shine them up some.  Keeping 27" wheels wasn't a big deal either, and would, once again, maintain the aesthetic.

Left:  the brake calipers before cleaning.  Right:  after cleaning.  Note the different brake pads as well.  November 7, 2012

     The one thing we could do to get definitively better braking power was swapping out the brake pads.  The original pads were old, hard, and had little stopping power left in them.  I ordered her two pairs of Sunlite's Road Brake Pads.  They are a good price for what they are, and they come with an extra pair of replaceable brake shoes.

The new pads are on the left, the old pads on the right.  A huge improvement in such a small yet important part.  November 7, 2012

     Finally, everything was in place to overhaul her bike.  That morning when I went to roll her bike out the door, however, I noticed how sticky and stiff her headset was.  Later that day when I was working on everything, I decided it best to break it open and inspect the cups and races for damage.  If a headset is too tight, the bearings can eventually pit the cups or races, damaging the surfaces in an irreparable way.  In spite of my fear that her headset was damaged, it ended up being in perfect condition, suffering only from old, gummy grease.  I cleaned and repacked everything, and the headset actually turned out perfect.  I think more than anything it shows what quality products will get you:  they're easy to work on and you get a perfect product in the end.  It slides like butter now, a marked improvement.

Left:  the finished headset overhaul.  Right:  various segments of the pre-cleaned  nastiness.  November 7, 2012

     The icing on the cake ended up being the bar tape.  The bike came to us with a slightly dirty yet still vibrant, deep pink tape, wound tightly and thickly.  Wanting to maintain the blue, pink and purple color scheme, we ended up getting her pink Origin-8 Cork Handlebar Tape.  Finally, her bike was finished, and she is very happy with it.

The finished product, in all of its pink glory.  November 28, 2012

     The next project will be giving her gears again, reintroducing a rear derailleur and shifter.  That will not be a huge project, but will require some cash.  Until then, she is happy with her delightfully pink Motobecane.

The awesome head badge.  They don't make them like this anymore.  November 7, 2012