I'm gonna chime in on the part warning... I just got a new project (posted right before you) and it's been pretty interesting. 70's gitane mixte. It had no pedals when I got it, now it has one! French threading... it's a pain to find parts for! I went to recycle bicycle down the street from me and foraged through their part drawers for a few hours. One of the guys was awesome in explaining the differences in french threading and what to look for. I brought home a big bag of borrowed possibly french threaded pedals (mostly my picks, a few of his) and came out of it with one fitting right pedal out of 15. the rest were all rights, and I got 2 lefts but they were both standard threads... oops! I will now have to return and see if I can dig out that matching pedal...

The whole bottom bracket is french threaded. I am planning to take it apart and clean the thing out but I have been thouroughly forewarned-DO NOT mess up those threads cuz you will go through hell and high water finding a replacement. I plan on being very, very, careful and having the shop take care of the cautering pin removal for me, for fear of thread damage.

So far nothing fits properly, not even the seat post and handlebars! (seatpost on there when I got it sucked, but new seats are set up differently, I had to special order) and some nice handlebars came seperately with the bike). Gonna have to do some trading in of parts, but I'm still stoked on it. French parts make it unique I think, and I think I'll be proud of the extra effort later. France did this until the 80's, and they were the only ones who did it


btw the bike is adorable!

Challenge-yey!