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1975 Motobecane Super Champion

Some time ago I acquired a Motobecane Super Champion frame for no better reason than that I wanted a Wagner fork crown and some metric Reynolds 531 frame tubing. The need for the fork crown went away and I decided not to dismantle the frame for the tubes which led to a decision to build up the frame into a bicycle. So started my research into what would be the appropriate parts to build it close to factory specification.

Catalogues

Searching the internet I found very little information on the model. I also found a number of inquiries by other people looking for information, and not getting much in reply. There really is very little available.

The only catalogue  information I have found so far is in a UK Motobecane catalogue for 1975 . The  lack of catalogue  information, and of information generally, would indicate that this was a very short-lived model only made for a year, or two at the most. The general consensus seems to be to date these bikes 1975, which is also the year of the UK catalogue. I don’t necessarily put much faith in the dates people put on their bikes, but the one in the UK is substantiated by the 1975 catalogue with the same specification.

Specifications

All the bikes I can find on the internet that seem to be at or near original specification have a frame with the three main tubes Reynolds 531 butted tubing (tubes renforcees), half chrome front forks, Stronglight 49D cranksets and Huret Challenger gears, Pivo bars and stem, with the exception of one bike in the US, supposedly purchased in Europe, that carries the model name on the top tube, but that is unquestionably a Team Champion (https://www.thebeautifulbicycle.com/2017/06/1973-motobecane-super-champion/) . It is an anomaly that might be explained by anything from human error to a factory tryout.

Below I give the links to a few bikes I have found on the internet, that appear to be substantially original, with comments on their specification:

Motobecane Super Champion 1975 | Discovered in a closed down… | Flickr I have placed this first because it is pristine and original and its specification matches the UK catalogue. The interesting things I note are: metal head badge; Wagner cast fork crown; “Made in France” down tube decal indicates made for an export market. Universal mod.68 brakes.

Motobecane Super Competition Vintage Road Bike Restore (thevelocollective.com). This again appears to be quite original. Differences from the above are plastic head badge, pressed steel fork crown, no “Made in France”, Weinmann centre-pull brakes.

Motobecane Super Champion 1975 – The Velo Collective. Very similar to the one immediately above.

https://obancycles.fr/portfolio/super-champion. This is restored and likely some parts substitutions, but Wagner cast fork crown and plastic head badge likely original, Dia-Compe side-pull brakes.

http://bibibikestock.blogspot.com/p/reference-reference-85us20-brand-marque.html. Very similar to the immediately above except more original equipment. It has Dia-Compe brakes too, so maybe these were original spec for some production batches or markets.

The bike pictured here is in the UK and is/was on eBay. It is interesting in being similar spec to the UK bike listed above, except it has orange paint and a stamped steel fork crown instead of cast and 3ttt bars and stem unlike any other I have seen. It is a bit of a wreck unfortunately, otherwise I might have been interested.

I did find a few more bikes on Facebook in the group “Vintage Motobecane Bicycle Enthusiasts”, but there is really not much more to learn. The bikes with as stamped for crown tended to have Weinmann center-pull brakes and bikes with a cast fork crown tended to have Dia-Compe Gran Compe brakes, with the exception of the two bikes I found in the UK that both had Universal Super 68 brakes regardless of the fork crown.

From this small sample size, I deduce that whether a bike has a stamped or cast fork crown is pot luck – there is not enough to see a pattern; metal head badge and “Made in France” limited to UK (and other export?) market; brakes depend on market or production batch or both.

Model Name

My thoughts about the short-lived model name are that Super Champion, the company that made excellent Super Champion rims, asked Motobecane to cease and desist using their name for a bicycle and that Motobecane agreed. But this is only conjecture.  There is no record on the internet of a court case that I can find, so if it was an issue, it was probably settled amicably. Super Champion would be an excellent name for a Motobecane racing bike to go alongside Team Champion and Le Champion. But it was not to be for very long.

Make no mistake, this is a bona fide racing bike with appropriate frame geometry, racing gears, tubular tires and fairly lightweight. And in orange paint it is not too far different in looks from the top of the line Team Champion. Certainly more of an entry level race bike, but a competitor would be scarcely  disadvantaged relative to a rider mounted on a Team Champion.

Updating The Website

Please bear with me as I attempt to update the website. I am trying to sort out a WordPress theme and way of doing things that is new to me. At the same time, I want to get rid of the annoying way that ads keep popping up. The site may be a bit awkward to use while I am doing this but I think it will still work. I am confident that it will be better in the end.

For Sale

I am substantially reducing my accumulation of bikes and parts.  If anything on this website is of interest, please enquire whether it is available.  I also have a number of components available – too numerous to list at the moment, but I may get round to it eventually.  Components include various generations of Campagnolo gears, cranksets, brakes and hubs.  Italian, French and British components.

1954 Stella Bike Added

1954 Stella 040I have just added a 1954 (estimated) Stella Tour de France model bike to the website.  This is the production version of Louison Bobet’s 1953 and 1954 Tour de France winning bikes.  It is currently shown in its “as found” state with some later 1960ish Campagnolo parts fitted.  It will be brought back to original spec, or to Louison Bobet racing bike spec, over the next few months.  Louison Bobet was the first rider to win 3 consecutive Tours de France, the first two in 1953 and 1954 were on a Stella branded bike.  His third win was on a Louison Bobet branded bike in 1955 when he was contracted to Mercier with whom he also had a contract for them to manufacture bicycles under his name.

Simplex Racing Gears

I recently gave a talk to the Cheshire Section of the V-CC on “Simplex Racing Gears“, which was very much an overview of the different models of racing derailleurs from the 1930s through 1980s.  I make no claims of scholarship or thoroughness with this – it was meant as a general interest piece with pictures of riders and bikes as much as of gears.  If you have anything to add or correct, please send it in and perhaps we can develop a useful resource for people interested in Simplex.

1940s Helyett Added

1940s_Helyett (1)I have just added some pictures of a 1940s (I think) Helyett Speciale.  It is a very well preserved bike with original finish and mostly original parts

I would be very grateful for any information you may have that would help me tie down the date more accurately (please use the form on the Contact page).  My current thinking is that it was made a year or two after the end of WWII – much later and the 3-speed Simplex Champion du Monde derailleur would be thought very outdated on a classy racing bike (I am assuming that this is not quite “top tier” because Helyett’s best bikes typically had an all-Reynolds 531 frame, but only a notch below it with its 531 butted main tubes).  I have no idea when Reynolds 531 tubing exports got back in gear after 1945, but, with Britain being somewhat indebted, there was a major push on exporting anything that could be exported, and raw material supplies were prioritized for export industries, so supplies would likely resume with little delay.

Back Again

I am sorry that we have been having trouble with this website and haven’t added to it for a while.  We still have some issues with the navigation but think that it is possible to get where you want to go.  We will be checking this out over the next few days/weeks.

Now that we are back, we would really like your contributions – there must be some great bikes out there that would fill some of the gaps in this website.  A lot of great manufacturers are still not represented here.

Mercier Getting Close

A couple of years or so ago I took a punt on a bike on eBay that was very badly described and that had no more than a non-drive side overall photograph. But Mercier and Campagnolo were mentioned by the vendor who read the names off the fork crown and headset.  The price only went up to about £80 and I became its happy owner, having to drive 75 miles to pick it up.

What I found was a rather drably painted bike with brazed-on saddlebag support, dynamo and lamp brackets.  Closer inspection revealed drilled Campagnolo dropouts, a racing number tab under the top tube and a first generation Super Record rear derailleur, Record crankset and Record brakes.  I had struck gold!  Clearly this was someone’s much-loved racing bike and rather than sell it and buy a touring frame, he had it converted into a tourer.  The standard of workmanship was very high and the cost cannot have been much less than a new frame – it even had a 1″ steerer fitted in place of the 25mm one so that a modern headset could be used. It should also be pointed out that the workmanship on the basic frame was superb too with nicely filed lugs – definitely “Fait Main”, definitely “Service Des Courses”

But my passion is racing bikes, so I stuck the bike in the loft to await restoration back to racing spec.  The first obstacle was that nobody was making reproduction decals at the time. A set of OEM decals came up on eBay but I missed out.  Then Cyclomondo started offering them but they did not have the narrower lettering on the seat tube decal as used on team bikes in the late 1970s and the head tube decal was a bit out of shape. So I patiently waited for a Mercier frame with the correct decals to come up on eBay at a reasonable price so that I could get the decals copied (the things we do for our hobby!). I ended up buying two – one for the head tube decal, one for the other decals (both will go on sale soon, so let me know if you are interested) and got the decals copied by bicycledecals.net.

Roll on another year while I was preoccupied with other things, then I dropped the frame off at Atlantic Boulevard in Bury together with the other Mercier frame for colour match.  And a couple of days ago I called by there and saw my frame with all its touring bits removed and a new coat of paint – and it looked gorgeous.  It still needs its decals, but then it will be full steam ahead to build it up as the real racer that it once was.  I can hardly wait.