Vintage project

[AndrewM]

These days, people say vintage when they mean 10 years old - well, my new project is real vintage - approx 1953/54. My Dad picked this up for me in a French brocant (car boot sale in English) for 15 euros!

It's a Metropole gents tourer, frame is made of chro-moly with 3 speed derailieur, alloy mudguards with integrated lights, pannier frame etc. All the bits are in good nick apart from the tyres which are shot. I'm thinking that a subtle restoration would be better - maybe just de-grease the frame and clearcoat it? All the decals are irreplaceable and the pinstriping was done by hand.

The details are great - the chainguard is a work of art and the frame lugs are just lovely. It's a lightweight too - compared to British bikes of the time with rod brakes and Sturmey Archer 3 speeds, it seems a lot more advanced.

I'll post some more pics of the build as I go.

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Edited by AndrewM on Friday 10th September 22:47

[lawrence hello]

Looks nice! Good luck with the project.

[CC07 PEU]

It'll be interesting to see what you do with it. As it happens, barely a few weeks ago I was faced with a similar dilemma. I have a 1954 Robin Hood Raleigh round the back of the shed and I'm not sure whether it's worth doing anything with. Ideally I'd like to get it all re-chromed and paint it a bright red with white mudguards and tyres etc but I'm not sure it'll be worth it.