Villiger Labeled TVT92 Carbone
"gridno27's - Helvetia-La Suisse TVT92 Carbone"
Wonderful bikes ... but this month I think there's no French bike within the contenders or better a hooded French one ...
Here's my actual finished Project - Here is my Swiss company Villiger labeled French TVT92 Carbone.
Refer to my philosophie I built it up as a replica of the 1989/90 Team bike of Helvetia - La Suisse. At lot
of later famous riders especially Swiss riders started within this Team their Pro-career in road cycling.
The motivation to build up this bike, was the fact that I found a nearly complete group set of Suntour SUPERBE PRO
in perfect conditions. So I investigate which team used in the 80s to 90s such a group set.I found 2 PRO-Teams are using this product of perfect Japanese mechanism. These were Dutch Buckler-Colnago Team and Helvetia-La Suisse Team of Mr. Köchli. Such a blue-yellow Colnago hasn't been payable and easy to find, so I go further to the former Swiss Team.
Normaly the riders of the Helvetia-LaSuisse team rode steelmade Villiger labeled Peugeout frames (I think the flashes are really similar to a Peugeot PX), but on uphill stages some riders also used a TVT92 Carbone frame set too. So I found a connection to my small plastic Probikes Replica collection and my favourite TVT
.
From this moment I'd looked for such a green couloured TVT92. With help of Chris better knows here as @Stringfellow1946 - who has so much specific knowledge of TVT92 I found such a frame set. But after starting the project I became aware, that there hasn't been any decals for a Villiger-Suntour labeled TVT. With the great support of DB from
http://www.wanit.co.uk (... sorry for advertising but he's really good!), who made all this decals individually for this project, I 'v been able to realize this project. Thanks to all my supporters.
The technical spec of the bike has been much authetic as possible - but in memorial to the support of Swiss company Weinmann during foundation of the team, I found a NOS pair of Weinmann Carrera tubulars rims to complete them with the SUPERBE PRO 7-speed hub set instead of in this times mostly used MAVIC GP4s. The group set is a 7-speed Accushift Suntour SUPERBE PRO incl. seatpost, pedals (they are orignal Suntour labeled SB-TM01 manufactured by TIME) BB and headset. The stem-bar-combination is from 3ttt, the saddle is a black Selle San Marco Rolls and 2 white Elite bottle cages, which has been used in this time. At least after long searching I found a corresponding Jersey of the Team too, which is now hanging beside the bike on the wall.
... so enough tales - now you can enjoy the first 2 pics of this bike, first a view to side of choclate of the bike and than a closer view to this fantastic wonderfull drivetrain of the Suntour SUPERBE PRO, later I will start under "Reader's bike" a full lenght thread for this bike.