Welcome to The Velo Collective
The definitive resource for vintage French bikes.
If you love vintage French bikes, there are lots of reviews and restorations, bike repair tips and information on this site dedicated to classic bikes. You can also find posts on other vintage European, Japanese and American road bikes, many with links to videos on our Youtube channel. Thanks for visiting!
Vintage Trek Bike, the 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 as Battaglin Someone wrote to me asking my opinion on this curious Battaglin 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...
Peugeot HLE Road Bike: Broken Rebuild
An Unrideable Peugeot HLE The Peugeot HLE 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 for it, a repainted frameset...
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...
Swiss Road Bike – a 1973 Juvela
Swiss Road Bike, the Marque Juvela "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...
1985 Peugeot PH 501 – Video
Peugeot PH 501 from the 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...
Vintage Mercier Rose with Shimano 600
The Vintage Mercier Rose I’d had my eye on this vintage Mercier rose 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...
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 Vintage Alan bikes and Peugeot Vitus.
Vintage Alan bikes and Peugeot Vitus Niaz wrote to me recently with some pictures of his superb French machines, his vintage Alan bikes and Peugeot Vitus, with some excellent informative background about them. He's kindly agreed that I can share them on this...
French Steerer Threads-Retapping and Repairing
French Steerer 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...
Lapierre Superlux
Lapierre SuperLux: Rare in America Unlike the plentiful examples of Peugeots, Motobecanes and Gitanes found on the streets of American town and cities, there are few Lapierre bikes to admire. Even fewer Lapierre Superlux models. They weren’t exported to...
Vingage Atala Rizzato – Completely Restored
A Bike for Séraphine I’ve only ridden a vintage Atala bike once, back in the days before the housing market in Seattle was still affordable and the Capitol Hill district of the city was more bohemian than tecchie. I owned it for a few weeks, but there was no...
Recent Comments