What Happened to The French: Fin d'une époque?

[Canuk]

35 years ago, the French had it all: 1990, the complete Mavic SSC group set, Sachs New Success 8 speed ergo group, Corima wheels and Frames, Look pedals which became the de facto clip in, Look carbon and Aero tour winning framesets, Huret Duopar Titanium gears, Corima exotic carbon saddles, seat posts and small parts and of course Mavic Zap! electronic gearing, which with a bit of patience and some tweaking could've been an electronic reboot of derailleur shifting twenty years before anyone else.

It's hard to believe they lost nearly all of their advantage. Only Look is really a successful global player.

Where did it all go wrong for the Frenchies?

 

[Canuk]

Lemonds Mavic Zap Carbon, two button simplicity. SSC chain set - Hubba bubba!

 

[jim haseltine]

Then they mandated lawyer tabs and screwed things up for everybody.

 

[Canuk]

Mavic Starfish, I mean come on! How did it all go tits up after this!?

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

Mavic is usually my rim of choice. They build into nice round wheels that are hard wearing. I use other rims but I think Mavic are my favourite.

 

[Woz]

Personally not extended my research to this period, and have limited knowledge.

Would say though all these companies and the products shown are very niche very high level. Essentially in reality they are very small / medium sized companies and it must be hard to sustain constant innovation without having something mainstream to fill the coffers and provide a cushion for any failed R&D or recruiting other talent from other technological areas like aerospace.

Perhaps where Look do well, they did indeed keep there traditional ski binding business - Look Fixations SA. You may find this interesting from 2016, and while it's on my to do list and visit, the plant / headquaters in Nevers that I have passed many times on train looks so unassuming.

https://www.matosvelo.fr/index.php?post/1794/visite-des-locaux-de-look-a-nevers

 

[Canuk]

A bit sad to see that even Look, the artisan frame producer are now having all their production done in Tunisia and Asia. Only the finishing and decals are done in France. I guess that's how they get round the 'made in France' conundrum!

 

[vtwinvince]

Where did they go wrong? When they elected a guy who married his mother.

 

[Canuk]

Woz makes some excellent points up thread. I didn't think about the impact of other industries on available resources/investment/talent. I've a pal does CAD for Airbus and he's always on about how hard it is to attract and retain talent in the aerospace industry. I guess that would go double for smaller, niche industries like bicycle component manufacturer. R&D would be a really risky business I reckon.

 

[ChromeChainstay]

I CANNOT believe Vitus didn't make the list. SHAME on you

always wanted a 992 - the peak,

and Time products, the famous fork', the famous pedals, the wound tubes

and christophe straps, the list goes on