1984 Motobecane MX 400

Low-slung Gallic racer - vive la France!

I love the lines of these French frames, so when this one popped up for sale I couldn’t resist it despite the lack of og forks! A beautiful design, with a low-slung, split-top tube, it looks fast and sleek just standing still. Matched with Tange forks (Tange built an earlier model, so there’s a connection there), I built it up with a mixture of largely era-correct parts. I wasn’t sure whether to go for a black or blue colour scheme, so went for a bit of both!! Spec list:- Motobecane frame (date stamped 1984) with og decals; Tange forks (date stamped 3C = March 1983) with repop decals; Tioga beartrap headset; Win Pro bars; Winners Circle grips with blue do-nuts; SR MS-423 stem; Shimano Tourney caliper with Weinmann pads; Dia-Compe Tech 3 lever (dated 1983) and Rampar cable; Suntour-style seat post clamp; Generic cro-mo seat post; Selle Italia-style seat (made in Italy); Araya rims (20 x 1.75) with Suzue sealed hubs; Cheng Shin (20 x 1.75) tyres with Kenda tubes; Shimano MX-15 pedals; Tioga 175mm opc (made by Sugino); Tioga BB (with a mixture of old and new parts); Tioga CDC-1 alloy chainwheel (44t); Suntour freewheel (16t); KMC Z chain; Dropout savers (Joe Buffardi specials). Thanks for looking!
[BOUGHT Dec 2014, BUILT Sept 2016, SOLD Feb 2019]