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!
Removing Rust from a Bike Frame: Vintage Peugeot
Removing Rust from a Bike Frame I just wrote a blog about stuck seatposts, and look what happens: the bike I've just bought has a seatpost that is stuck solid. Still, all is not lost; I have yet to try all ways to get the thing moving, but the feeling I...
A Note about Stuck Seatposts
Buyer Beware I imagine it's fairly uncommon, but it's actually really important; when you are about to buy a bike, you really should check if the seatpost moves in the seat tube. I mean, why not? Ok, I suppose it could be construed as being a bit pushy...
Vintage Peugeot Road bike: PFN 10 Barn Find
Rusting Away Staying on a farm in France for a winter break, I saw this vintage Peugeot road bike stuffed at the back of one of the farmer's storage buildings. This unit is just a canopy and open to the elements even though it has a metal roof, so the...
Cycles Legluais – a Bit of an Oddity
Everything I don't know about Legluais Ever heard of Maurice Legluais? I doubt that you have, as his name and his bike shop have fallen into obscurity and there's scant information on the internet about his bikes. What I do know is that his shop was...
Road Bike Test: Modern Versus Vintage
Why this Test? This road test between a vintage and modern road bike came about entirely by accident. I didn't sit there on the couch thinking of a blog to write, or contrive to throw something together to waffle about during this period of inclement...
The Hill Special: A Bizarre Coincidence
The Hill Special On the 31st August 2014, on the afternoon that Eastbourne's pier burnt, I had the bizarre stroke of fortune to meet the Hill family in my back garden - the day after I just bought a 1982 Hill Special locally on Gumtree. How likely is...
How Many Ball Bearings..?
Ball Bearings are Confusing Note to self: don't write a blog about ball bearings in bike parts, it's a bloody nightmare. In fact it would be a mammoth task for anyone to precisely evaluate the amount and size of ball bearings for each component over the...
Tubular Tyre Repair: Gluing the Side Trim
Saving that Old Tubular! Sometimes old tubulars look beaten and worn out, ready for the bin. Yet, often they are in better condition than they look, as good quality vintage tubulars were well made tyres. Old tubulars can look scruffy, often they can have...
Vintage Freewheel Threading and Specs
Vintage Freewheel Threading and Specs ( French Bikes ) Vintage freewheel threading isn’t a simple matter; just like many other components on older bikes, French, Italian and British bikes had their own proprietary threading. In other words, a freewheel from an...
Motobecane Super Champion Restore
The Super Champion Trying to find information about the Super Competition isn't so easy; in fact, a few bike enthusiasts on some forums even dispute it ever existed. Well, here is proof that Motobecane did make this model, albeit infrequently, through the...
Creaking Noise When Pedalling – Fix
The Deceptive Problem When your car starts making a weird noise, you know immediately what you're in for. Unless you're already in suspicion, or have been expecting a particular problem, finding the source of a bump or squeak can be a real...
Restoring a 1981 Eddie Koepler Bike
Mystery Man There's very little information out there on the mysterious Eddie Koepler. From what I can gather, he was a professional cyclist, perhaps a domestique, who quite possibly rode in the Molteni team with another Eddy, the iconic Merckx....
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