A number of people have confused Liberia with Libertas. Liberias were made in Grenoble, France while Libertas were Belgian bikes.
We sold some entry level Liberias in the mid 70s. They had lightweight lugged steel frames and alloy rims plus all of the standard French entry level components. Even so, they were under 26 Lb. bikes and rode very smoothly.
The paint and cosmetics was slightly better than most French bikes from that era but they used ugly Mylar foil decals like so many other French bikes.
We got in a few mid range Liberias with better frames, I think that they may have been Super Vitus 971 tubing with Simplex dropouts. The supply dried up. I guess that the importer went out of business.
Chas. Colerich Oakland, CA USA
Jeffery Pyzyk wrote:
> These days, I am mostly an Italian bicycle collector, restorer, and rider. However, I recently rekindled an old college romance I had with Mercier. I have undertaken a cleanup/restoration of what I believe to be an early 1970's model 300 that I just picked up. I have been most intrigued by the current Mercier discussion, and particularly the excellent information provided by Mr. Lockley on these bikes. My newly acquired case of Francophilia has led me to pull out my mid '70's Liberia that was passed down to me from my father-in-law.
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> Liberia seems to be a little known brand that, like many French manufacturers during the "boom", built a lot of mass-produced gas-pipe-framed bikes. Mine is not one of them. The frame is full Reynolds 531, as are the forks. The bike has Simplex cast dropouts, both rear and front, and very nicely detailed brazing and long pointed lug work. The frame has chrome "socks" with fender eyelets on the dropouts, and is gold in color. There is quite a bit of hand-painted detailing like lug lining and hand painted red, white, blue, and gold separation bands on the seat stays, chain stays, and forks. Also, the seat stay caps appear to be hand-painted and are red, blue, white, and gold. The bike came with Simplex LJ derailleurs, Mafac brakes, Stronglight cranks, headset, and bottom bracket, Ideale saddle, and Normandy hubs laced to gold anodized Super Champion tubular rims.
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> Unfortunately, over the years, the paint has crazed and cracked, and is beginning to rust and flake. I would like to restore this bike and am going to try to carefully photograph and measure the decals in order to have them reproduced. Any detailed information or resources directly related to the Liberia brand, and in particular, higher-end Liberia bikes from the 1970's would be most appreciated.
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> Jeffery Pyzyk
> Milwaukee, WI