A good looking bike sells quicker than an equally worthy less cosmetic bike. In order to sell my Motobecane Grand Jubilee I stripped off the old man bike components and installed lighter, racier parts from the bike’s era.

I originally built the Grand Jubilee for myself, from parts, and used my best Alexrims DH wheelset with new kevlar tires. I stripped them off and saved them for a future build. On the Moto I installed a light French Wolber wheel with QR and a generic flip/flop rear.

I got the SR ‘7-shaped’ quill stem, brake levers and cables, and alloy drop handlebars from my ‘new’ [1982] Centurion LeMans12, installing them on the Moto along with snazzy yellow cable sheathing to match the frame’s gold pin-striping.

I put the Moto’s custom tall bars and stem on to my new Centurion; along with the Electra Bike flat rubber pad pedals I like so much; Cloud9 gel seat with rubber bumpers; vintage Swiss Pletscher rack; Bell bike bag-most of the parts I stripped off the Motobecane.

I put steel ‘rat-trap’ pedals on the sale bike, they grip well when wet but gouge anything but a boot or tough shoe, which I don’t wear.

I put on a beautiful, lightweight, tiny and rock hard Specialized brand seat.

The kids love uncomfortable, dangerous and impractical bikes so when I sell I oblige them with hard racing seat, neck-killing drop handlebars and jagged ‘rat-trap’ pedals-but I don’t remove the brakes because “they’re ugly”! That is a bridge too far.

Sold in one week on Craigslist for my asking price of $250USD-you know they ain’t going to bargain if they drove 90 miles (144.84096Km) to see it. Thanks Chris from SF! Please don’t go all fixie crazy and remove the brakes for aesthetic reasons. Good luck.

 

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