1975 Motobecane Grand Touring for Sale

I had good reasons to think it would be an Antique Road Show moment. (1) In this country, an antique is anything older than twenty five years. (2) It’s in perfect condition. (3) It’s very classy looking. But the guy at Sellwood Bikes said it wasn’t that special; not a particularly sought after item in the collector’s world.

I took it there Saturday, because Hugh at Northwest Bicycles told me that two of the guys there, named Steve and Erik, know all about old bikes and are all connected up with people looking for them.

I explained to him that it never quite fit me right. He said “This frame was made for men.”
Well of course I knew it was a men’s bike, but no bike merchant ever thought that was a problem in 1975. In those days men’s bikes were all they made for serious biking. The only alternative was a girly bike without the bar across the top of the triangle, which anybody could see wasn’t as stable. “Men are longer in the torso,” continued Steve. Which explains why I always felt like I was leaning over too far. Darn thing was too long for me.

But things are different now. I plan to follow up with a woman in Portland who custom designs road bikes for girls. I’m going to go see her shop and I’ll report back.

Meanwhile, I'll be selling this bike If anybody out there's interested, you can email me. I'm putting my email address here in code so that the spam scanners can't recognize it. It's just my first name, Kate, the AT sign, then my last name, Gawf, then dot, and then net.