Gitane for my future wife

What started as a relaxed budget project for my female-partner has now become a nerdy full-on secret birthday project for her

Last fall we started planning a build for her. She doesn't know much about cycling, and building a bike is somewhat a lost cause for her. She doesn't really want to build the thing, she just wants to know how it feels to ride a smooth bike. She wants gears, and she definitely has a certain opinionated taste for the bike aesthetics, so i think i will have some luck in pushing some bike culture her way.

Right now she drives around on a rusted piece of junk, so to speak.. Its my responsibility to get her rid of that thing, and i will gladly do so. I've begun planning a cute little steel bike for her. Hopefully she will end up happy with the result, and she will begin riding around herself and experience the joy of bike riding.

I recently stumbled upon a Gitane frame in her size. It's a fine frame with a nice paint job in a marbled-blue style with yellow lettering. Tubing is columbus cromor. A true race frame, without any fender mounts. She will have to do without.. Like most of my other projects, i can't control myself, so i ended up buying a used Dura Ace 7700 group set for the bike. I want the group to run on down tube shifters, and have the bike fitted with a more relaxed milano-style handlebar. She recently had a bad case of scleroderma inflammation (i google translated that one) in her wrists, and needs a more comfortable riding position. So it will be a pseudo racing bike with a more touring minded-setup i guess..!

Setup so far:
Gitane Colombus cromor sz 50
Dura ace 7700
Suntour downtube shifters
Mavic open sport wheelset
Cinelli 1a 110mm + Belleri handlebars (and a can of coke for the fitting)
no name polished seat post
Regal saddle
Yellow tressostar bar tape
gatorskin 23mm tyres

I have already started building the thing slowly, and i expect it to be finished by the end of next week. As all bike builds, unexpected things do happen, and i don't think that this will be any different. Lets see how it turns out! I am quite excited to reveal this one to her. She literally has no clue that i am building it for her

More pictures to come.

Hey! Really nice looking frame. This has a potential. Cranks fitted are DA 7400 btw.

Nice project, great starting point. I've built a few bikes for my partner who's a short arse with t-rex arms. Couple things to consider, relatively low stack height of trad steel frames, as ugly as they are i'd suggest an adjustable stem so she can find a comfortable position before settling on something permanent. Toe overlap can be a problem on small frames but being geared less so than fixed. 23c tyres? Why not the fattest you can get on there (GF currently loving her 28c Gravelkings)?