[CR] Mystery Bike ID Help: Why are they always French?

(Example: History:Ted Ernst)

From: "Benjamin Butler" <benbutler78@hotmail.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:06:38 -0400
Subject: [CR] Mystery Bike ID Help: Why are they always French?


List,

It seems like quite a few of these requests come in, so I hate to add to the pile, but I have a very nice unidentified French bike that I'm trying to put a name on.

It seems to be 50s-early 60s as equipped, and the frame details are curious: Nervex Pro Legere lugs, Vitus main tubes and fork, toptube cable braze-ons, and what appear to be Simplex LJ dropouts (big wedge derailleur tab that extends out from the dropout).

Unique details are: semi-wrap seatstay caps with a wide, flat taper, and the buttressed (?) brake bridge that mounts the brake through the bottom.

It's stamped 8464 near the top headlug, and 4 at the bottom, and 729 on the seat cluster. The BB shell is Nervex Pro and has a very long number stamped on it, that I assume to be a Nervex serial.

It's built up in typical French fashion for bikes of that era: Simplex Juy/TdF derailleurs, Stronglight cottered crank with Simplex rings, CLB brakeset etc.

It seems like it has lived in the NYC Tri-State area since it was imported, if that helps.

The biggest mystery to me is the combination of Nervex Pro lugs and Vitus tubing - it seems that even with the French bikes it was always Nervex/Reynolds, so maybe that can help identify as well.

Here are pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbutler/3771305939/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbutler/3771306771 http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbutler/3772112764

Thanks in advance for your collective knowledge,

Ben Butler
Brooklyn, NY