Mark Poore wrote:
> The point I am
> trying to make with this story is that with Gitane nearly all the
> bikes were sold as complete bikes, this on e would have been an
> exception. Now, nearly fifty years later if that bike would have
> turned up there would be a debate as to if it were original or n ot
> as my choice of equipment at the time would have been slightly
> different than that of a stock Gitane. It would be impossible to know
> without talkin g to the original owner. This can been pretty much
> said for any bike that w as available as a frame set.
This was my experience in the late 70s too.
"Stock" was not the goal. Morphing a bike to fit your own personal needs and vision was the goal. "Stock" bikes like the Fujis we sold a lot of, were starter bikes... a way for the inexperienced to get a decent frame with enough parts on them that you could get riding. From there, you could tweak this and modify that to make it "yours".
Add to this that for some, like the early Treks, the bike models (as opposed to the frame models) were only vaguely defined by their parts list which, as you note about the Gitanes, could change at any time.
I think things started to change in the early 80s. High bike models in the Trek line had started to solidify and the notion of buying a frameset only started to drift away.
In this way, I see any definition of "vintage" that is based on a concept of a bike model as opposed to a frameset to be imosing a more modern view on that era -- at least for vintage lightweights. For vintage cruisers, kids bikes and 3-speeds, I can see a bike model approach as making sense. And I recognize that some companies had well established lightweight models in the 70s (Raliegh, Fuji, Schwinn, among others). But to my mind, it's all about the framesets.
-Dave Mann, Boston, MA
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