1947 French touring bike — Bombadil/Hunqapillar inspiration?

[J J]

I'm starting a new thread here instead of pushing Eric M's epic mid-December thread "Bombadil and Hunqapillar origins: The definitive thread" further afield.

I have assumed that Joe Breeze's Breezer 1 was the main inspiration for Bombadill and Hunqapillar designs. But after stumbling upon this fascinating Bombapillar-like French bike on eBay, I'm not so sure. The seller says it's a 1947 650b model, but info about it is scarce.The eBay page has a few other pics, too. The middle diagonal tube looks super cool to me.

Is anyone here familiar with this bike? I'd love to hear about it if you've got info or history to share. I wonder if it was an actual production model or more of a one-off custom. 

It looks robust, and has wide tires, a lugged stem (I think?), funky brake and shift levers, clean welds, racks, hammered fenders, generator lighting. I think it would be familiar in a crowd of Rivs, not a total oddball, anyway. 

Curious what others think.

Thanks! 

Jim

(This photo would've been apropos on the cool thread "Celebrating Triangulation" from Sept. 24.)

 

[Joe Bernard]

I don't know anything about the French bike but I don't think Grant was inspired by any particular one when he started fiddling with extra tubes. There was an early Rivendell Reader (I guess they're all early now) with an article all about triangulation and bridge trusses and stuff, I think it started there. 

Joe Bernard 

[lconley]

Note that Grant does not use twin tubes for the diagonals from the head tube - he uses a single tube, even on the mixte-ish frames and tandems. As far as I know he has only done one frame with twin diagonal tubes, does anyone know of another?

One thing that I know about that French bike is that the stem is not lugged, the French were fond of casting aluminum stems that looked lugged, but were not. Pivo, AVA and ATAX were among them. There is an AVA stem that is known as the death stem due its tendency to crack completely through, maybe they have moved on to carbon fiber now. That stem on that bike looks like a Pivo due to the elongated oval around the name - cannot make it out, but AVA used a diamond shape.

Laing

[Den John]

Horizontal double top-tubes like on the Bombadil-Hunqapillar are quite common on Dutch and Belgian town and cargo bikes.

I wonder if this 1920s Labor racing bike was the inspiration for the rainbow tube on the Atlantis.

Cheers,

Johnny in Belgium

[Jeremy Till]

Such "Twin Lateral" reinforcements were fairly common on taller and heavier-duty French touring bikes of the mid-to-late 20th century, and have been featured in Bicycle Quarterly. They're generally found on bikes intended for carrying heavy camping loads (hence "Campeur") rather than, say, a "Randonneur" intended for more moderate loads and more "spirited" riding. It's not unheard of to see lighter-duty bikes with reinforcements, however, especially if they're intended for bigger/stronger bikes. I even recall seeing a racing frameset from an Italian builder of a very large size that featured Bombadil-esque reinforcements.

Here's another example of a French Campeur: 

https://flic.kr/s/aHsjuLmnvw

Hard to say if such bikes were an inspiration for Breezer #1, maybe somebody can ask Joe Breeze next time they're at the Marin Museum. It wouldn't be impossible, given cycling's popularity in the Bay Area, that he might have encountered such a bike before building his own. 

Grant designed a custom with true twin lateral reinforcements back in 2014, except they were "tentacular" in that one curved up to the seatstay and the other curved down to the chainstay:

https://flic.kr/p/mjNfJc

It was for a relatively short rider who wouldn't normally have warranted such reinforcement on their frame but I recall it was a specific request from the customer, who was enamored with the "tentacular" diagatube setup on the Proto-Appaloosa/"Mystery Bikes" (which were the genesis of the whole "long chainstay" ethos, but that's another thread). She was a former list member who went by the handle "Riv Chica Warrior," IIRC, and she had won the frame in some kind of raffle that they held back then. Grant didn't feel there was enough room on the headtube to braze in a full diagatube so he went with the smaller diameter twin laterals.  

-Jeremy Till

Sacramento, CA 

On Monday, March 6, 2023 at 6:38:03 PM UTC-8 J J wrote:

[Steven Sweedler]

I met a rider during Bikecentennial that had similar diagonal stay added to a Raleigh Professional. He was happy with the result. No pictures though. Steve

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Steven Sweedler
Plymouth, New Hampshire

[Joe Bernard]

Tentacular! My dubious claim to fame is I called them tentacles here, then Grant replied with tentacular..I'm very proud 😊

THAT WAS 9 YEARS AGO? 😳