Team Pro/Replica

Billed as the same bike used by Gitane’s professional teams, these bicycles first appeared in the early 1980's: The 1983 version was built with Columbus Tubing, a departure for Gitane which lasted two years, before a return to Reynolds.

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1984 Fork crown detail	Jack Bissell's 1984 Gitane Replica

Finished in a beautiful French racing blue, the frames featured internally-routed rear brake cables, a braze-on for the front derailleur, and the ultra-sporty and very cool number plate peg under the top tube. In 1983, they were outfitted with Mavic brakes, Stronglight cranks, Simplex derailleurs and Cinelli bars. In 1984, the bikes were outfitted with Campagnolo Super Record.

One disturbing story about these frames center around the Simplex dropouts on the drive-side stays. It is held by some that these had a high rate of failure on the bikes. One story is that a team which was outfitted in the USA with these bikes broke every one of them – and all in the same place. It may be for this reason that Gitane switched to Vitus dropouts on later frames (or perhaps another reason?)

The Team Pro was not offered in the Gitane catalogue in 1985 or 1986, but returned in 1987 in the same metallic blue of 1984, but used Reynolds 531P ("professional") tubing and Campagnolo's new C-Record groupset. They also had internally routed rear brake cables and the number pegs, sporty extras which added to the class of the bicycle. Also features was a “hidden” seat post bolt, which used a fixed screw system which was tucked neatly behind the seat tube.

These bicycles came with Vitus dropouts and came with both painted and chromed forks, depending on the year. The chain stays were chromed as well. Interestingly enough, these bicycles used standard English threading, departing from the difficult to find and hard to work with French threading of the 1970’s models.

Gitane changed the name Team Pro to Replica for 1988, along with the color (white, black & yellow) to better match the Systeme U team kit. The Replica was built with the notoriously brittle Reynolds 753 tubing and came outfitted with Campagnolo C-Record throughout. It included a pantographed 3ttt stem.