Neat catalog links, thanks for posting them
I'm not so sure the date for the switch to the inexternal frames is that early. The shop I hung out at in High school had Motobecane, and I eventually bought a grand sprint in 1981. It may be a 1980 leftover, but I'm not sure.
There were a few changes from the 1979 catalog by then, the rims were rigida, and the colors for the Grand Sprint were either a light metallic green with brown stripes or red with silver stripes. I opted for green because a couple kids in my neighborhood had red bikes that were Schwinns or Huffys and I wanted to have something a bit different. All the frames in the shop at the time were lugged. The Team Champion was still light blue, I don't recall the color for the LeChampion. The shop may not have had one, they only got one Team champion all year. It's interesting that mine was sold as an entry level racer, there was a huge difference between the Le Champion and the Grand Sprint, and no models in between. The Grand record was sold as a "touring" bike. anything less was just a ten speed, some better some worse.
The only bike that wasn't lugged was a blue aluminum frame that was probably a prolight model made by Vitus. Different from the Vitus though as it didn't have internal cable routing.
Steve Birmingham Lowell, Massachusetts USA
Message: 3 Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:38:36 +0100 From: Kai Hilbertz <khilbertz@googlemail.com> Subject: Re: [CR] 81 Le Champion To: CR List <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Cc: Dickey <ogreer@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <DE91503A-6A60-45A0-A0BF-2884910D319F@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"; format=flowed; delsp=yes
Jan. 14, 09
Hello List, Dickey + Jeff,
there are some 70's + 80`s Motobecane catalogs here:
http://www.flickr.com/
http://www.equusbicycle.com/
http://equusbicycle.com/
Greets
Kai Hilbertz Munich, Germany
On 14.01.2009, at 17:36, Dickey wrote:
>
> If you can read Le Champion on the top tube, and it has nice lug work
> then it's not newer then a 78-79. I don't know about 1980 at all.
> What I
> do know is that in 81 and up, the Team bike was the only one with
> lugs.
> The LC used the in-ex-ternal machine brazing. It had Col SL tubes but
> the new type fast brazing method. The head badge on the 80s is a 1"
> square piece of white tape, with Motobecane stenciled on it. ( Very
> rich
> looking, huh? ) Also, if the tube decal is 531, it's 70s. There is
> very
> little info on Motobecane after 1978. If anyone wants to share info
> off
> record, hollow.
> Dickey Greer
> West Monroe,La