I just picked up this all original Stella from 1971, I believe, from what the owner told me. He purchased it in Wisconsin brand new, and it’s spent most of its life after the late 70s in his basement in Virginia. French steel, excellent condition, Suntour gears, etc.. Has anyone had any experience with these or know their value? It looks like it would be an excellent second bike to keep around the house for friends who want to ride along with me on my trek 520, or to just get around the city.
by webbmoncure
1 Comment
There used to really good blogger page that told the story of Stella. I went searching through my bookmarks and it has poofed. To make it worse, it is not on the wayback machine.
What I can remember was the factory caught fire in 1976, and with that the company went up in smoke. Sadly there is not a lot documentation online from what I was able to find.
Higher end bike were equipped with Campy dropouts and wheelsets, most of which I’ve encountered (less than 10) had Huret derailleurs/shifters. The Mid level bikes were equipped with Suntour( I have seen 20+ over the last 10+years) .
I have one of the stella and arctic cat colabs of the 70’s bike boom. IMO it is a great riding frame.
Notes: The crankset/pedals are french thread limiting options if you want to change out pedals.
There are french threaded BB’s available if you ever need to make a swap. I recently found a Sram GXP style BB in french thread.
If it has a Philippe stem keep an eye on it, there is a history of them cracking.
The lovely light steel tubing is metric and ever so slightly smaller I.D. than more common asian or US bikes of the era.
The following is not advice and can potentially lead to injury or damage to the bike.
After a couple years of riding my stella I decided to modernize it.
I cold set the frame to 135mm to fit a wheel using a 9 spd cassette. I swapped the heavy 2x cranks to a lighter aluminum triple. The replacement front derailleur and downtube shifters had to be shimmed with a bit of beer can.
I had the dreaded Philippe “death stem” and the difference between it and a nitto in my parts bin was .2mm difference in OD, a little sandpaper was able to make it fit. After these mods the stella became a daily rider for years and has outlasted some newer bike in my stable.