Hello from France

[cchris2lou]

Nice .

I am from Millau, so not that far from Montpellier .

I have an Oscar Egg to restore and a motocomfort too .

 

[speedthing]

Welcome to the forum thats some nice bikes you have.

 

[OldTel]

Hi, nice to see some french style on the forum, please don't hesitate to post some of your older bikes, I for one, would love to see them. Terry

 

[dutchie]

The red/blue LEJEUNE is in the same colour scheme as the bike of Jan Janssen when he won the Tour the France. The teambike of Pelforth - Suavage- Lejeune. Nice...

 

[Old Ned]

Interesting bikes, especially the Didier Louis - but -

'Didier Louis frame which was raced in the Tour de france from 79-82 (with a bendy seatpost) by Dominic Leboeuf (amateur)'

Highly unlikely if Mr LeBouef was an amateur, TdF is only for professional riders in trade teams and I can't think of any teams that rode bikes like this. His name does not appear in the very extensive list of riders on the Memoire du Cyclisme website.

http://www.memoire-du-cyclisme.net/

Sorry!

 

[Veloart]

It's funny you say that as afterwards I drove 6hrs down to Bordeaux to see a collector I know called Jean Michel Garcia and he is quite a serious collector as well as having raced semi professionally for a long time and at the same point in time Dominique raced. He firstly was very suspicious because of the bike and then he went through reams of lists he had of competitors from first 79 and then 80 and we could find no evidence of it. Dominique Leboeuf also claimed he had had the forks engraved with his initials D L - which ironically happen to be the initials of the frame builder Didier Louis.....
In Dominiques defence the reason Le Tour came up is that I had bought a mercier service de course from 1973 which had been a training bike for a pro rider who had competed in Le Tour and I think he was just trying to sell his bike before he left to head back to Mozambique the next day - he did also have a lot of racing trophies in his house so maybe he felt he probably could/should have been racing in Le Tour....
If anyone here has been to L'eroica you may well have bumped into Jean Michel as he has been every year since it started and treats it as a race (although he has just suffered a pretty horrific accident and had a lot of ligaments removed so this year he won't be flying the french flag) - also if anyone is going this year and is having problems with accomodation I have the number for Maria who is the founders wife and I'd be happy to see if there is any space at the inn.
I have 2 randonneurs from the 50's I'm doing up and a track bike Peugeot from I think 1912-1914 - again Jean Michel was able to date it pretty accurately as in his collection he has a 1910,11,12 and 13 Peugeot all in unbelieveable condition. I took some photos on my iphone I'll try and upload some - not great shots and most of the bikes were hanging but my God it was a feast on the senses...
So to conclude that Didier Louis was not in the Tour de france and although I wanted it to be true what Dominique said - my doubts were raised in Bordeaux and now looking through that site there is no evidence to back it up.
I have also just been offered a Goeland Randonneur Frame but it needs some serious love as the top tube has split and I have just been offered a 1930's velo de course frame which is in pretty good nic - so if anyone is interested in can post pictures - I take it it is best in the classifieds part.

 

[Rich34]

What a fascinating post - would love to see some pictures of your '50s Randonneurs...