Welcome to The Velo Collective
The definitive resource for vintage French bikes.
Cycles Gitane in Blue with a Chain Line Problem – Video
A History of Violence Perhaps this bike has no “wow” factor, it’s neither of really high quality nor is it impressively beautiful, but it’’s a cool, lower mid-range bike from the 1980’s that I found for a good price. Is it worth blogging about? No, not if your...
A 1986 Motobecane BC112, Video with Huret Problems
Just Around the Corner I saw this cool 1980’s Motobecane standing outside a neighbour’s house, with a sign “á vendre” ( for sale ) attached to it. Seeing it in the distance, I guessed that it wasn’t a high end bike. The reason? Its red saddle. These plastic types of...
American Special – Trek 500; Better than a Peugeot?
Video Review Below: https://youtu.be/wlvEAvGifUg Clash of the 501’s I recently posted a blog about the Peugeot PH501, though it doesn’t feel recent. It was actually in January, before the pandemic began and when normal, mask-free life was taken for...
A French Frameset, but Branded Battaglin?
Rebranded Someone wrote to me asking my opinion on this curious track frame which he has recently bought. It has horizontal rear dropouts and lugs that I don’t recognise, but it is not an Italian frame. As you can see from the bottom bracket cup, it has...
Video – Building a New Bike from a Broken Peugeot
About time The Peugeot was owned by my brother in law from new, but a few years ago the rear chain stay snapped on it and the bike was ruefully stored in his shed. I sent him the quite striking replacement frame, made up as a Look bike but likely to be...
Motobecane Mystery Model
The Frameset Diggs got in touch with me about a very beautiful frameset he bought from an enthusiast in Paris, pictured below. As you can see, it's a lovely frameset, black with superb gold detailing around the lugs, gold decals, half chrome forks and...
1973 Juvela Swiss Road Bike
The Marque "Juvela was a brand from Lausanne 1951-72 where I live and I don’t know why, very rare here! There is not a lot of information about, but as soon I got them, I’ll write you more about. Anyway a beautiful frame and even in the French part of...
1985 Peugeot PH 501 – Video
Peugeots in the Mid 1980's I like this era of Peugeot bikes, a time when technology was changing and the brand's grip on the market was slowly but surely slipping away. Peugeot were still making cool bikes at this time, I'm in doubt about it. In fact,...
Mercier Rose with Shimano 600 Groupset
The Bike and the Car I’d had my eye on this pink Mercier bike for a few days, so on the morning when I finally arranged to meet the seller and see the bike, I felt quite determined to buy it. It was about a 25 mile drive to the seller’s house, deep in the...
Felix’s “Arosa”: A Christmas Present for Donat
I Bet You.. ..£5 that you haven't seen one of these before. It has nothing in common with De Rosa, the Italian brand par excellence. This is an entirely different kind of objet d'art. I'm not going to lie, I had never heard of this brand when Felix got in touch...
Niaz’s Alan Competizione, Carbinio and Peugeot Bikes.
Alan and Peugeot Niaz wrote to me recently with some pictures of his superb French bikes, with some excellent informative background about them. He's kindly agreed that I can share them on this site, as they are two great examples of the best French bike...
French Steerer Threads-Retapping, Extending, Repairing
A Tale of Two Threads Here is an email I received recently from Carles, with an interesting but difficult problem with his Vitus bike: “I recently ended up in your website, which I found super useful. I had the bad luck of ending up with a vitus with italian...
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