By Donald W. Gillies
This is the type of cool old bicycle that I stumbled over repeatedly on the streets of paris, in 2004. As someone who collected coins as a child, I can only compare visiting paris to the joy of being given the opportunity to time-travel back about 40 years when your plane lands at DeGaulle Airport (which truly looks the part of the 1960's creation that it is ...)
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Figure 1. Motobecane ?Astra-Mix? Fork Detail
Figure 2. View from a little farther away.
Figure 3. Entire ?Astra-Mix? bicycle from afar.
Figure 4. Drivetrain - ?Astra-Mix?.
And here is a more modern (1980's I think) motobecane mixte frameset. This one has a rather unusual top tube that splits in two as it tapers down to the seat tube. I had never seen something like this before, i remember seeing peugeots that remain as two separate tubes all the way to the head tube.
Figure 5. Drivetrain - Motobecane Mixte w/Splitting Tube.