French Race Bike fans:
A recent auction for a Gemini bike caught my eye (item #3635913544) because 1) the bike is a beauty, 2) the seller claims that "Gemini was THE brand for serious racers until 1980 / THE master French framebuilder ... located east of Paris", and 3) the headlugs look exactly like the ones on Luis Ocana's Tour-winning Motobecane in 1973.
Ocana's orange bike had vertically-oriented oval cutouts in the lugs. It also had twin "snakebite" holes in the fork crown, similar to early '70's Colnagos.
Perhaps these oval cutouts are just another standard lug pattern in somebody's catalog and it's just a coincidence that I've only seen them on these two french bikes. Anybody know?
In any case, it's a nice bike -- check out the drilled stay tips near the rear dropout.
(I have an indirect interest in Ocana because in 1975 he captained the Spanish SuperSer team -- as far as I know the only Tour team to ride Zeus bikes with Zeus equipment.)
Brad Stockwell Palo Alto
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