A decent, random find.....Paris Tour de France. 1948 (ish)

I'm always on the lookout for interesting bikes, particularly good British ones, and sometimes I find them by accident.....I like it when that happens.
My daughter couldn't make V festival this year, due to one thing or another, and having an intensive driving course starting Monday, so I said I'd sell her ticket for her...I placed it on gumtree, and happened to notice an ad for '3 old bikes' accompanied with a picture of a BSO ....I checked the ad though anyway and saw the BSO, a low end Khalkhoff and another one that piqued my interest.....I couldn't identify it, but it seemed to have nice lugs and a decent brooks B17.
I made an appointment with the lady to see her at about 2, but couldn't make it. I then tried to go later, but someone else was there.....I thought I'd missed it.
She then said the other person, a collector, had taken one of the bikes, and did I want the other racer. I asked her to send me a picture of the one that was left, not holding out much hope....she sent this

Obviously, I was round there ASAP, and bought it for her asking price....which was very reasonable.

Currently, it looks like this

The plan at the moment, is to strip the unwanted bits off it, and see what state the paint is in.....the previous owner had hand painted the main frame tubes in purple...the original colour seems to be brown. I'm not sure if it's going to be a full resto, or a good tickle with the prettiness stick!

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great find ! smart lugs and fork crown.see the seat post is laid back ? would you say that was a fad
of that time.?

Very nice find. The 'collector' messed up a bit.

I'm not sure about the post....it's almost like it's meant to be a bit bent.....it doesn't show any obvious signs of deformation. The lugs are actually bi-laminates, which involves getting a thin sheet of steel, cutting the pattern into that, then brazing it around the joint...apparently, it improves strength, as well as aesthetics. The collector was not that hot though, I agree! :0)
I have taken it all apart (the crank is off too now) and had a little go at the hand painted crud with some very fine wet and dry.....it seems the guy primed it too, or I've gone right back through the original paint, which I don't think I have. There was no sign of the original 'Paris' decals on the downtube either.
I'm going to be changing the wheels, as they were a miss-matched pair...the front a very nice FB Brevette hub on a 26" Weinmann rim, probably original, while the rear was a double fixed Maillard, on a wolber Gentleman, in 27" flavour... I have a very nice old set of Maillard large flange hubs, with mavic red label GP 40's in 700c, that I've offered up, and while not period correct, they look good.
I think that's also an original 'Rensch' front mounted bottle cage....which is a definate result!
I'm thinking that I'll give the whole frame, bar the headtube and seat tube panels, a light rubbing down with fine wet and dry, and see what that looks like......if that looks pants, I'll respray the main tubes in as close to the original brown as I can get, and leave the blue panes as they are......I hate repro decals, and love the patina of these originals. It's only original once, even though I'll be having a go at the other bits, I want to keep the decals. I know what I mean.

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So, it's definitely a Tour de France model!

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This is awesome. These decals came out under the paint as you rubbed it down?

Hopefully you can save them

Until what year was the rules of TdF to ride fixed gear mandatory?

Quality find. Will watch the progress of this with interest.

Cheers....
I don't know the answer to the TDF question, but these bikes were sometimes built with Osgear rear dropouts.....this one might have had them too, but if it did, they've been removed....old school puppy killing!
I was just knocking back the hand painted lumps, when I went through to grey primer.....then after a bit more, through to the original paint. The downtube started to show some orange, and then I uncovered the decal. This will take some very, very carefull use of wet and dry paper to uncover them fully......and according to any other web resources I can find, I haven't seen decals on the down tube the same.......anyone else seen them?
I'm going to try to remove the old crud and primer, then try to preserve whatever is left......we'll see.

Nice!

Lots of eyelets on the seat stays!

Excellent thread - loving the decal-archeology!
Will be following with interest.

re: TdF gearing rules - they first allowed derailleurs in 1937. they tended to ride flipflop freewheels before that.
If you're interested, check this link for some nice photos.
e.g.

Link is amazing, thanks

It's exciting, isn't it!
I've now got to decide how to go about it.....I think I'll carefully remove all the rubbish paint, preserving the decals as much as I can, then lacquer it. I love the originality rik, as you know, and it would kill me to respray......great link, by the way!
Oh, and as well as the original Rensch bottle cage, that is a Chater-Lea lamp bracket! :0)

Great pictures in that link!!

Thank the "collector" for what he has left behind! (Hopefully he didn't pick up and even nicer find!)

I was wondering about the seat stay eyelets...
Campagnolo Cambio Corsa was around in the late 40's.... could be braze on's for that.

Ah, it could very well be indeed.

might not be that exciting - more likely just a rear lamp, dynamo cable & rack ;)

yeah, but I am a romantic

pretty sure that seat post is meant to be like that.could be for a tandem
be interesting to see what the complete weight of it is when finished.
ive seen the bi -laminate s being done on ricky feather's w site.
nice idea to save the areas where the original decals were then perhaps laquer.

The rack was attached to the lower one.....not saying it couldn't have been originally? They usually specced osgear on these, apparently

pretty sure that seat post is meant to be like that.could be for a tandem
be interesting to see what the complete weight of it is when finished.
ive seen the bi -laminate s being done on ricky feather's w site.
nice idea to save the areas where the original decals were then laquer.

^ @Regal has Ricky Feather Bi-laminate

A truly stunning frame. old school artistry without a hint of retrobollox. one of my favourites.

BITD rack/mudguard mounts were sometimes on seatstays, and an eyelet for a rear light was also fairly common on the DS
What's on the NDS? presumably there's one for the rack but are there any more?
( IIRC Osgear didn't require anything on the seatstay - just an eye under the BBshell and those wierdy pointy d/outs).

Thanks RvL. Yes - my Feather was done slightly differently though - Ricky fillet brazed an oversized headtube on, then cut it away to form the 'lugs' and brazed a normal 1" headtube inside it:

Condor still have their Paris / Galibier frames made in the same way as the OP's, with cut plates that are bent around to form reinforcements at the tube joins (as Stedlocks mentioned):

http://www.condorcycles.com/paris/bi-lams-not-lugs.html

Excellent cross posting :0)
I must say, if I were to have a modern frame built, it would have to be Ricky feather......no question. He absolutely 'gets' it......I like to think that if I was talented enough t build frames, they wouldn't be a million miles off of feathers..........

He does indeed get it. Dave Yates said that a few years back he was doing a frame building demo at a bike show somewhere and he noticed that while most people had a bit of a gander then left, one person watched for the full 3 hours or so. Turned out to be Ricky Feather.

Anyhow, what a cracking find. Love the uncovered tdf decals.