Tag Archives: Meral

Reconversion Therapy: 700c to 650b to 700c

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I’ve had a long and interesting relationship with this early 1980’s Meral Sportif.  It’s actually the bike that inspired me to start this blog.  I acquired it as a frame and fork back in 2012.  It was going to be the platform for a 650b conversion – the first one I had attempted.

While the conversion to 650b went fine, there were some issues with the bike:  the frame was slightly too small for me, and the bike had serious toe overlap with the fenders I had installed.  I later changed the build in a number of different ways, installing upright bars and different fenders that had a flush connection to the front stays, so as not to engage my shoes.  I put a lot of miles on the bike, and enjoyed tweaking the components, but a couple of years ago I stripped it down to the frame, and set it aside, not knowing what I would do with it.

Recently I have been searching for a project that I could actually start and finish within a reasonable period of time, having become frustrated with a number of other vintage builds presenting road blocks at every turn.  And, I have been wanting to move toward selling many of the bikes in my too large collection.  Due to the pandemic there’s not only a shortage of new bikes and parts, but also a renewed interest in cycling.  So, this seems the perfect time to thin out the stable.

My first thought was to accept the bike as it is:  a small frame designed around 700c wheels. I focused on making the bike true to its French heritage and to its original purpose as a sport riding machine, but with enough all-rounder gear to make it useful for all kinds of riding.

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I was pleasantly surprised to find that even with these 32mm Paselas, there’s enough room for fenders at the fork crown and rear brake bridge.  I installed a set of beautiful Shimano 600 side pulls, which work very well with the Dia Compe levers on the Phillipe bars.  The bike has its original Shimano 600 headset, French sized, so I didn’t mind mixing all kinds of components, both Japanese and French.

The drive train consists of a Sugino GT crankset with 50/45/34 rings, paired with a NOS Suntour Ultra 13-30 6 speed freewheel.  This gives a wide gear inch range of 30 – 104 – perfect for full speed blasting and hill climbing.  I used a Shimano Deore long cage rear derailleur, the same one I have always used with the bike, as well as a vintage Shimano front derailleur.

Gear changes are seamless with these Suntour stem-mounted ratcheting shifters. It’s nice to have the shifters close at hand rather than on the downtube.  Previously I had installed a converted Huret shifter clamp, allowing Shimano pods to be mounted.

The “new” 700c wheelset consists of vintage Campagnolo Record hubs laced to new Mavic Open Pro rims, a set that I built a while back.  As expected, these wheels are smooth running and spin forever.

The rear rack adds utility, but with the porteur bars up front, a front rack would fit nicely as well.  The frame size is 49 cm (seat tube) X 51 (top tube), perfect for someone about 5’2 to 5’4, but with a shorter inseam than my 30 inches.  I’ll be listing this bike along with some of my others over the winter months and I hope its new owner gets to enjoy it as much as I have.

 

Sourcing Vintage Cycling Components and Hardware

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As part of reviving and restoring any vintage bicycle, it may become necessary to replace components with period correct counterparts.  Replacing fasteners and other hardware can also present challenges, given not only their special purpose, but also their one-off threading, which may be French, not-so-French, Italian, and other threading anomalies. Over the last 10 years I have restored a number of vintage bicycles that presented challenges in both the component and hardware categories.

Huret derailleur

Simplex chain stay mounted bell crank derailleur

The mid-century Mercier Meca Dural that I restored a few years ago was fitted with an incorrect wheelset and rear derailleur.  The Huret unit, depicted first, was installed on the bike’s vertical dropouts, yet this rear derailleur is designed for horizontal dropouts.  This was an example of modifications made to the original bike, with bad results.  The incorrect Huret derailleur mounted on the vertical drop-outs resulted in no chain wrap, and poor shifting.  After seeing that the bike had also been modified with an incorrect and too large wheel size, I took to French eBay to source a NOS chainstay mounted Simplex bell crank derailleur – a component which was standard fare on vintage Mercier Meca Dural bicycles of this era.

When the NOS derailleur and shifter arrived, I rejoiced in how beautiful and functional this vintage component was.  Searching foreign language sites broadens the scope of your endeavor, and may make the difference between success and failure.

Simplex was notorious for using oddball threading on its components.  The 2nd photo above shows a Simplex shifter with M6 x .8 threading – instead of the standard M5 x .8 on all other shifter bolts of this era.  I have a tap and die set of tools in my shop to use in the event that re-tapping is necessary.  However, I try avoid this if replacement vintage components can be found with the original threading.

Sometimes, things work out well, as was the case with this mid century mystery French mixte with Oscar Egg lugs.  The Simplex components on this bike were clearly all original and worked perfectly once the bike was overhauled.

If you will need to add or replace fenders on a vintage bicycle I recommend exploring Velo-Orange, Rivendell, and Compass.  These vendors offer different products and hardware from a variety of manufacturers, and you may be able to find just the right fender width and hardware for your application.  Fender stays, bridge mounting hardware, and daruma and eyelet bolts are usually included in your purchase of new fenders.  Meanwhile, I can’t think of any manufacturers today who are making a fender resembling these lightweight and well engineered steel fenders shown on this early 1980’s Meral, above. These fenders mount easily with the original hardware and work fine with a 650b conversion.  They are an example of the unsurpassed beauty and utility of vintage components.

A Velo-Orange Shipment

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I order components from a variety of sources, but one of my favorite suppliers is Velo-Orange.  Even though its founder, Chris Kulcaycki, sold the company earlier this year to two of his long time employees, I haven’t noted any negative impacts on the quality and variety of products offered.  I think the company is well positioned amongst its competitors, namely Compass Bicycles – Boulder Bicycle – Rene Herse (all owned by Compass Bicycles/Jan Heine), Rivendell (Grant Peterson), and Harris Cyclery (Sheldon Brown’s shop), as a purveyor and innovator of bicycle frames and components for cycling enthusiasts, and especially for those who appreciate the quality and reliability of steel frames, comfortable, wide tires, and retro-inspired components.

My haul today included some of the parts needed to complete the 650b/city bike conversion for the early 1980’s Meral Randonneur bike I recently purchased.  In my box of goodies was a full length chain guard, Velox rim strips (more on that later), V-O thumb shifter mounts (competing with Pauls’ Thumbies), Tektro brake levers, and a new KMC 8 speed chain.

I also ordered an extra 8 speed chain (you can never have enough chains), as well as my favorite brake pads:  V-O’s non-squeal smooth post pads, which work really well with Mafac long reach brakes.

I also use these bake pads on any bike with cantilevers – they really are almost 100% squeal proof and provide excellent stopping power.

But what prompted this order was the extraordinarily bizarre experience I had attempting to mount a set of Grand Bois 32 mm 650b tires to the Velocity A23 650b wheelset I had purchased from Harris Cyclery for $289.  Yes, that was the price for both wheels, which feature Shimano Tiagra hubs.  Well, you get what you pay for.  I purchased these wheels as a placeholder to see if a 650b conversion would really work for this bike, so that is why I went with the cheapest offering out there.  The downside was discovering the the holes drilled in this narrow rim end up partially on the upper edge inside the rim where the tire’s beads need to mount.  Installing the necessary narrow rim strip meant not covering these very sharp edged holes completely, which I knew would lead to flats and blow-outs later on.  I tried installing a wider strip, but that interfered with the Grand Bois tires’ beads.  Many swear words ensued at this point.  Finally I took to the internet to see who else had experienced this problem.  Turns out – everyone.  The best advice I read was to use three narrow rims strips on each rim, carefully positioned to cover the holes without interfering with tire mounting.  We will see how that goes (subsequent blog post forthcoming!).

Meanwhile, I am looking forward to setting up the other components, such as these very elegant Tektro brake levers.  Using 32 mm tires means that I will be able to re-install the lovely custom stainless steel Meral fenders.  It will also be interesting to try out the full length chain guard for this build which I envision with a single chain ring up front, as well as to experiment with V-O’s version of Paul’s thumbies.  Stay tuned.