Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Paris street bikes

I've been in Paris visiting my new French family for the past week. As a bike junkie, I have been scanning the streets to see what kind of sweet bikes French people ride. As France is one of the places most involved with the development of multigeared modern bikes, you'd think the place would be brimming with sweet bikes, but mostly people seem to be riding some real clunkers with a preference for the mixte. I have however seen a few bikes of note, and found a couple of early MTBs.
This thing is a MBK (I think). Nothing too special, but I've never seen these Cantis before:

You guessed it, French biopace:

I couldn't resist this Vitus 979 Mixte, like I said they love those Mixtes. The frame was unbranded, so it is possible it was actually a ALAN, but to the best of my knowledge they are the same bike.
An early 80's Norco. Lots of low end components but still has bullmoose bars and a Biplane fork crown.


Also, not a MTB, but a rad chainring on a Motobecan.

Some random early 80's lugged mtb.

I've been shooting pics on two cameras and one of those I forgot to bring the cord for. So eventually when I'm back in the Etats Unis I will post some pics of my amazing trip to Cycles Alex Singer, and an incredible Jo Routens randonner bike I saw crusted out locked on the street.

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