I came across an odd brand this afternoon, a Jacques Anquetil Tour de France. It's set up as a fixed gear right now, and has tubular rims.
The frame has no tubing decal, and has lugs that look like a rough copy of the Nervar lugs on my Motobecane, but without the cutouts. The decals are foil with a black and white picture of J.A. on the seat tube. The dropouts are forward facing, and the front fork has a forged crown. The crankset looks like a standard Nervar Cottered crank with a single 46T, 1/8" chain wheel, the stem and bars are alloy but are unbranded, the bars say Made in France at one end. The saddle is a badly rotted Ideal, and it had no brakes installed. The front hub is a low flange, with a 3/8" nutted axle with the name Renak, and a 21 and a 36 just below the logo. The rear hub is a high flange and is marked 950, Made in France. It looks like an earlier round hole Normandy, but is not a track hub. hub is not French threaded.
Does anyone here know when these were made? Any info on either hub? (These may be common, but I just have never run across either of these before). Might anyone know how this bike would have been equipped originally? Tubulars or clinchers? Simplex Prestige or Huret Allvit or other?
The frame has brazeons along the right side of the top tube for a rear brake cable and a small slug to locate a down tube shifter, but no paint marks where one was removed, the same goes for the brake mounting holes.
Condition wise, it would probably be ridable with a good set of tires, but the decals show some where as does the paint, but not all that bad for a bike that I am guessing is from the mid 60's or so. Since it doesn't have rear facing dropouts, I am assuming it was converted, not to mention the mismatched hubs. The front wheel is mint, but the rear rim has a few dings and looks like it's got a few small stress cracks around the spoke holes. Does this sound like anything worth keeping? I have nothing invested at this point other than some time tearing it down to better access it's condition.
Joe McKishen
Vineland, NJ
USA