French headsets, bottom brackets and seatposts can be had from VO. You can sand down a Nitto stem to fit a French fork with little effort, or you can just use a English fork with normal headset and stem. French bikes (Gitane, Peugeot, Motobecane, Libertas, etc.) are not really much cheaper though. I have a small Gitane Tour de France that I was thinking of selling, but I would want closer to the $800 than the $200. I originally ended up at Rivendell because the new frames were the same or cheaper than used 70's/80's classic lugged 531 frames. You might look for a lugged chrome-moly Ross road frame/bike, they are kind of under the radar of most people. They sometimes had cheap components on a nice frame. I got a complete lugged chrome-moly Ross mixte at a thrift store a few years back for $60 - weird parts - the wheels were 3 piece chromed steel hubs with alloy rims. Ross was early into mountain bikes, but they did have some decent road frames.
Laing On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 11:45:29 AM UTC-4 Yankeebird wrote: > I would like a Roadini, but it's going to be a while, and I'm going > through some money constraints right now, and I don't mind fixing up > something else in the interim. I have a Cheviot right now, and it's my > primary main bike for everything. I also have a Surly CC that I built up > with an Alfine IGH 8 and Albatross bars, but I keep that at Mom's so when > my bro and I visit we have a bike to bang around on to blow off steam. > > I would really like a decent smooth steel frame that will take at least a > 32-38 tire, and I can build up either with another IGH/albatross or a > cassette and drop bars depending on my whims. Something zippier than my > Cheviot but not a straight up triathlon bike. > > I'd like to get my hands on a '86 Schwinn Passage (my brother has this > bike and it's an incredible) or an early/mid 80's Trek 720. But these > things are going for PREMIUM money, almost ridiculous. I value them as > $200-300 bikes, but they are listed at $800+ and it boggles my mind. > > Any other comparable frames to the above two I mentioned that I should be > looking at? What about Motobecanes? Do they have standard sizing for > components or am I going to be banging my head against the wall finding > French sized parts? > > Biking is something I enjoy, and I can do basic bike MX and can learn the > stuff I don't know, but I am not deep in the weeds of dorkdom when it comes > to bikes. I have other much deeper passions. I probably won't build a > wheel, but I can replace a BB. I know what I like and what I want when I > see it, if I'm pointed in the correct direction by those who know. Hence > this query. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/38d03a6b-ef08-4568-936e-fcc525b29274n%40googlegroups.com.
