Bertin: Mixte, English and Cradle Women’s Frameset Designs

At first glance, Cycles Bertin seems to have been a smaller but pre-eminently French manufacturer and distributor of quality French bicycles and parts. The early Bertins are built with Vitus Durifort tubing, Huret, Simplex, Mavic, Ideale and other French brand name quality components. But look more carefully and you will find a company willing to respond agilely to market demands as Columbus, Reynolds, Milremo and, yes, Shimano begin to appear on its products. Remember, while doing this, Bertin was simultaneously building mopeds and motorcycles, running a wholesale parts distribution company and managing a semi-pro cycling team and supporting independent racers using his products! Keep these facts and their complexity in mind when the details of Bertin’s women’s bicycle designs are discussed.

From early in the Post World War II period, Cycles Bertin had focused on supplying export markets as well as domestic demand at home in France.  In addition to former French colonies like Morocco and Vietnam, Cycles Bertin sold its products in Britain through a close association with Ron Kitching. (See this post for further details.) Although British buyers were becoming more open to the “Continental” fashion of road bike design, especially in regard to racing bikes, the market in Britain for sport and utility machines was somewhat less fashion driven and more conventional or conservative. Female cyclists in France, for example, rode mixte frames around town or on randonnees and diagonales but diamond frames if they raced. In Britain the double, parallel down tube design remained the dominant style of women’s bike other than for racing or sport. The French catalogues called them the “Dame Anglais” or English Woman’s style. As well , there were “Mixte” frames and a third style often found on utility bicycles but also on women’s sporting bikes called the “Dame Berceau” or Woman’s Cradle frame.

The English style frame has self evident advantages for a woman mounting or dismounting while wearing a dress, skirt or long coat as would be expected of a utilitarian, female cyclist in the 40s, 50s and even much of the 60s. Although the step over is low, the convenience of the design is high even if it badly compromises frame strength by effectively removing the top tube. The lack of an effective top tube or extra stays makes the design prone to twisting under vigorous riding. Ultimately, not a big problem for utility cyclists but limiting if sport riding is to be done. The bicycles themselves were sold in France as well as the British market and the advantages proved to be long lived. The example to the right is from the 1990s and speaks volumes to the durabilitity of the basic design concept and the advantages it conveys to the casual or utilitarian rider. There was a modified version of this style as well with a flattened section in the upper down tube to provide more bracing to the frameset. The photo of this green coloured variant shown to the left of the page comes from the 1980s and demonstrates that tinkering with and modification of the design continued consistently as long as production lasted. The other photo, of a late 1990s Bertin production bike, shows that the adoption of oversized aluminum frame tubing, gussets and TIG welding allowed designers to restore lost torsional strength to the frameset and still keep the advantage of the step through “Dame Anglais” design.

The Mixte style of frameset was offered in parallel with the English Woman’s style and the Cradle frame design. A major advantage  of the mixte is that the design restores much of the lost torsional rigidity of the frame by attaching the narrow diameter twin lateral tubes to the seat tube as they pass and by adding a third set of stays to the back of the bike. Because the twin laterals are small in diameter, they are heavier than an equivalent larger diameter top tube would be. As well, more weight is added by the extra set of stays in the rear triangle of the frameset. Despite the extra cost of the mixte design caused by the special head and seat tube lugs (see photo to the right), extra tubing and special cable routings (see photo below), the mixte remained a viable sporting bike as can be seen in the white randonneuse shown above with its dropped bars and guidonnet brake levers. Step over was compromised as was minimum weight but the frameset had the potential to be a useful multi-purpose bike.

The Cradle, the third frame design focused largely on women (men did ride the mixte as a town bike due to the extra clearance for rapid dismounts in traffic), was frequently seen on bicycles with a clear utilitarian focus. It was largely a compromise between the two other designs being a basically “bent” mixte that restored some of the lost step over height so evident in the English woman’s frame design. Sometimes the twin lateral went directly to the rear dropouts after they bent above the bottom bracket as shown on the green Bertin in the accompanying photo. On a different occassion, the lateral tubes swoop down low in a curve only to gracefully curve again in order to meet the junction points with the dropouts as seen in the photo  of the Bertin C 10 to the left of this text. Noticeable as well, is the fact that the utility bikes are equiped with Stumey Archer 3 speed hub gears. French enthusiast cyclists decried these as “friction boxes”and refused to ride them unlike their English equivalents. However, on a utility bicycle, an enclosed gear system was something that appealed in both markets.

Another noticeable characteristic of these bikes is that they usually come fully equipped with rack, fenders, lighting, chain guards, sometimes even with dress guards to prevent soiling madam’s clothing while coming back from an errand. As well, these classic, utilitarian cycles manage to offer all this functionality with a panache and pleasing style that quite embarasses modern utility bikes such as the welded aluminum Bertin shown earlier in the post.

These three frame styles offered by Cycles Bertin were in no way definitive. Mixtes could be ordered from the factory with hub gears. English style bikes could and did come with derailleurs as might Cradle design framesets. Andre Bertin was a pragmatist who was willing to provide what a market might need whether it was 650B or 700C wheels, utilitarian accessorizing or pumps and tool kits. Remarkably, while juggling the huge responsibilities mentioned above, he was able to do it with a sense of style which leaves these classic old bikes desirable even today.

Bertin Lady’s Bike C 31 Not a Mixte

Back at the end of September, I was corresponding with a reader named Kyle. He had just finished doing an update on a late 70s Bertin lady’s bike which quite impressed me. The bike itself was in outstanding condition with wonderful paint and graphics and clearly had been cared for during its life. Unusually, I thought, it was not a mixte. Typically, French manufacturers built mixte or cradle framed women’s designs. Clearly, from the photo below, that is not all that Cycles Bertin constructed.

They also built the “dame anglais”or English Woman’s style of frameset. It is less expensive to build than the other two styles but the three different types of design were offered by Bertin from the earliest days of production. A possible explanation for that may be in the fact that Britain was a solid export market for Bertin through his partnership with Ron Kitching and the preferences of the British market needed to be considered. Whatever the reasons, the bike itself is lovely from its glowing ruby paint, to the details of its Durifort frameset and its custom rear rack. Thanks for sharing the project with other Bertin enthusiasts, Kyle.

Endnote: In January, 2012, I will be writing about the different styles of women’s framesets at somewhat more length after I retire, again, at the end of December.

Bertin C 35 Restoration

The charm, emotional attachment and uniqueness of an older bike are not the only reasons for using, preserving and restoring one. The bicycles of the past 50 or 60 years had, in many respects, been optimized in design for their various uses through technological evolution. If it broke, it got redesigned. If it rode badly, the angles, rake or trail got fiddled with. There was an ongoing dialogue between theory and usage with the result that by the 50s, 60s and 70s, the steel bicycle was as close to technical perfection as the existing metallurgy and use would permit. True, the details were constantly changing in much the same way as skirt lengths do and while arguments raged over the preferred tubing brand or assembly method, the skill or artistic vision of the builder/constructeur, the central core of  accepted best practice remained.

However, this does not mean every bike from the period was a classic nor that any of them were perfect! Mass produced bikes from the 70′s boom were often poorly brazed, assembled and painted as any person who saw some of Peugeot’s paint jobs would attest!  Nonetheless, the design and tubing diameters were optimized and these bikes often have a lovely ride/handling compromise that is very much lacking in contemporary designs due to the new bicycles’ tightly focused specializations.

This is a very long background to explain the desire of  Tim M. from Virginia, to get things right with his Bertin C 35 by restoring it.

Origins

When Tim was in college in 1980, he decided he would buy a Bertin C 35 from Richard Hallett’s World Championship Bicycles in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The bike was a 1979 clearance model advertised in Bicycling magazine and selected from Dick Hallett’s catalogue. The order was placed for a C 35, 60 cm frameset, finished in Fire Engine Red. What arrived was a 58 cm C 35, finished in an orangey-red. No matter. It was beautiful, it was light, it was reddish and the sizing was almost right. The bike was ridden for the next 15 years until retired to the garage and replaced with a Mercian. Even then, Tim began the process leading to restoration by starting to collect period appropriate parts through EBay auctions.

Changes

One of the things acquired off of EBay was a black, 60cm sized Bertin C 37 frameset. The size and the fit were right in a way that the C 35 had never quite been and so the C 37 got built up and ridden. But the C 37 is a racing bike not a randonneuse and by the 1970s its design had adopted modern racing geometry. The old, laid back, low trail Cyclo-Touriste design of the C 35 was fondly remembered by Tim but it was no longer what he was riding. The intention of getting the older C 35 refurbished strengthened despite his enjoyment of his C 37.

Progress

Once again, EBay provided the opportunity for change. A light blue, 60 cm, 1978 Bertin C 35 was offered in an auction and Tim bought it. The online photos of the bike were quite attractive but the actual bike was far rougher than first supposed. There were paint chips as you would expect in a 33 year old frameset but paint was worn right through to metal in spots as well. The biggest issue by far were the bent fork blades. Judicious cold setting with a fork  jig helped as did filing away 5mm of metal from the inside top of a dropout. The result was a bike with that fondly remembered ride but an obstinate tendency to go its own way rather than track true down the road. The extra 2 cm of frame on the blue C 35 gave Tim the position and comfort of his black C 37 but the geometry provided The Ride. Correspondence with the previous owner revealed what equipment had been on the frame and Tim built up the blue C 35 with a combination of NOS and parts recycled from his other Bertins.

One of the additions was a NOS  TA front rack to support a handlebar bag. That was acquired through Via Bicycle in Philadelphia. The fenders were from Velo Orange and once fully assembled the C 35 looked like this:

Tim described his now favourite bike as “smooth and well mannered” recreating the core experience of his too small 1980 C 35 with a properly sized and set up 1978. All’s well and so to the happy ending? Not quite yet.

Tipping Point

Tim loved the bike, loved the ride but kept thinking about the not-quite-right fork, the unmatchable paint chips and scrapes and the “not my real choice” colour. Then he began thinking about decal makers, painters and frame builders who might be able to make the C 35 into everything it should have been in that college year of 1980.

Decisions

Eventually, Tim decided to restore his blue C 35. He settled on Elliott Bay Bicycles/Davidson Handbuilt Bicycles as the team to do the work.  He knew of the store, its proprietor Bob Freeman and Bill Davidson through his travels. He was also aware of the deep knowledge and enthusiasm both men would bring to the restoration process. Equally importantly, he decided to arrange for J.R. Anderson at VeloCals to create and produce a correct set of Bertin decals for the project. The meticulously correct Vitus stickers came from Cyclomondo.  While he was making supplier choices, Tim, like every restorer, had to face the issue of how the restoration would be done. Would it be “original”, a complete reproduction of what the bike was like as it came off the assembly line in 1979? Not necessarily good for a bike that would be subsequently ridden rather than displayed.

Another possibility was “period correct” in which the look or visual “feel” of the bike is retained but subtle functional improvements like Kool Stop brake pads, lined brake cables or index freewheels and chains are added to make the bike perform better or more safely.

Finally, there is “it’s my bike and I will do as I please” which ignores all aspects of the bike’s heritage and period in favor of the owner’s unique, personal vision. This approach should really be called hot rodding not restoration.

Tim’s choice was “period correct”. For example, he chose to keep all his clip on frame accessories but did add one set of down tube braze-ons for his bottle cage. As well, the cage itself was a Velo Orange re-creation of the early TA cage design which had been supplanted by the time the bike was built but which could easily have been a parts box item. In the interests of originality, light metallic blue should have been the colour choice but real originality, 1980 originality, demanded bright, fire engine red and that was the paint colour chosen and then sprayed on at Davidson’s. All of this was part of the dialogue between originality and meaning for the owner doing the restoration or having it done.

Process

Once the concept was arrived at and refined, decisions made and locked in, suppliers and craftsmen selected, then and only then, was the frameset sent off to Davidson Handbuilt Bicycles in Seattle in December of 2010. Some restorations are simply blast it, prime it, paint it , add decals and done. Others are more complex and as complexity increases so does cost as every would-be restorer needs to consider.

For Tim, the added complexity was the fork. The blue one was basically unsalvageable but the old orange C 35 had a perfect fork that had a steerer that was two centimetres too short. The solution was the fork blades and crown from the old bike with the usable and correct length steerer from the blue bike. The application of excellent craftsmanship, time, and chrome plating to the “new” fork increased Tim’s cost substantially but addressed perfectly the tracking issues of the blue bike’s frameset.

While the metalwork and paint were in progress, VeloCals turned out a set of reproductions for the decals which were indistinguishable from the original foil Bertin applications. Eventually, in early June of 2011, the frameset was done and shipped back to Tim on the East Coast.

Completion

Once the frameset was returned, Tim completed the re-assembly with the parts he had acquired prior to its restoration. The impressive and beautiful results may be seen below.

The Reckoning

So, after six months, custom decals, careful craftsmanship and rebrazing of the fork and a full frame alignment followed by a  beautiful fire engine red paint job, the frameset is home, assembled and being ridden. Tim comments,”It rides wonderfully, just like it always has, with the exception that now it will go straight down the road… .” Looking back on the restoration process from the start of his Bertin ownership in 1980 to the present, Tim commented, “… after 32 years, I finally have the bike that I ordered!”

Addendum

Thanks to Tim M. for fact checking the accuracy of the post and for shipping his old black C 37 to a new home — mine (for a future Bertin Classic Cycles restoration project which should begin in early 2012). Readers, please also remember that there is an orphan Bertin C 35 frame, size 58 cm and orangey red in colour. If you are interested, send me a message via my Contact Form and I will forward it to Tim so that he can respond to you directly.

Bertin Folding Bike C ?

Sometimes the varieties of clever ways in which things can be done truly amaze. A recent email from Norbert in Munich, Germany produced one of those situations. He had written me about a Bertin he had recently acquired. It was a type of “folding” bike although it really did not fold. It disassembled using some clever quick release features rather than some kind of locking hinge mechanism as is typically found on these types of bikes like Bertin’s own C 53. I thought it might be a C 55 but that is really just a C 53 with  550 sized wheels instead of the C 53′s  20x 1.75  sized ones.

As yet, I have been unable to determine the model type as I have no reference material that shows a bicycle like the one Norbert photographed and shared with me. Perhaps another reader has some knowledge and experience with this type of Bertin and would be willing to share it with us. Below you will find the photos of what Norbert found.

Bertin C ?  Folding Bike

 

The bike as shown has an incorrect, smaller  front wheel. The original had been stolen and the replacement was what was available. Norbert is sourcing a correct replacement to restore the bike’s correct handling.

The quick releases visible in the photo are the basis of the disassembly of the bike. Once they are released, the brackets lift free of the cross frame main tube and permit the relocation of the front half of the bike overlapping the rear.

This view shows the rear of the bracing and lugs which anchor the system. The following photograph shows the disassembly.

 

Note that the wiring for the rear light also has a quick release coupling to permit the separation of the wires.

 

And the bike fully disconnected.

                                 

 

 

The above photos are further examples of the unique and interesting details found on this late 70s or early 80s Bertin .

Bertin biography has been updated

The Andre Bertin biography header page has been updated. For those who are interested, click here. The changes involve enlargement of the Bertin portrait photo, modifications to the page’s layout, improved examples of Bertin racing jerseys and some added details about North American retail sales of Bertin bicycles.