What is your Holy Grail among French frame builders?

[otherself]

Mine would have to be SMG (Jean Frelat) from the late 70's to late 80's. He built frames mostly using the bronze fillet-brazing technique. They were organic in my opinion, like avant-garde sculptures. Frelat - always a patriotic man who snubbed Reynolds and Columbus tubing (though he did build a few frames from the latter) - put his trust in French tube makers such as Vitus and the lesser known Excell and Cadus. He was particularly fond of aero shaped tubing with internal cable routing and socket style internal seatbolt clamps with 'fastback' stays, putting him ahead of his time. He passed away in 2009 aged 80.

So, what about you?

 

[Midlife]

There was a French bloke who made aluminium bike frames after the war, Hilary Stone had one on his website for a while, looked amazing! Going to have to Google...

 

[legrandefromage]

Not really a holy grail for me but I quite like my Daniel Salmon.

A Rene Hearse would be on my list though.

 

[Rod_Saetan]

There was a French bloke who made aluminium bike frames after the war, Hilary Stone had one on his website for a while, looked amazing! Going to have to Google...

Barras?

There’s a nice unrestored example hanging on the wall of an Indy near Camberwell...




... it’s not for sale, I asked!

 

[Midlife]

Thank you Mr Saetan, it is indeed Barras

 

[Rod_Saetan]

Re:

I’d like something 50s from one of the great Constructeurs, aside from Herse I don’t know too much about them though.

 

[Mr.Toad]

Re:

For me, Reyhand and Narcisse are tops of my list.

Innovative and beautiful.

 

[24pouces]

Re:

Nicolas Barra for being more precise.
He built Apo Lazarides aluminum bike for the 1949 Tour de Franc with pre Klein-esque welds

Lot of great french makers. On the top, you can find Alex Singer...

 

[non-fixie]

I like all of them, but it was Alex Singer who inspired me to finally do what I did this summer to a Japanese frame set I had hanging in the rafters for years:

 

[keithglos]

Re:

I was going to add Alex Singer to the list.
Back in the mid 50s I brazed a couple of 6mm nuts on the front of the fork crown. and mounted the Weinmann centre pull on these, which eliminated the bendy back plate. I needed more leverage because the effective depth was greater, so followed Alex Singer and mounted a Mafac pulley with appropriate brazed bits on the steel handlebar extension to double the leverage.

Apo Lazarides was the great Azurean climber, famous photo looking across at a much needed drink in the hands of Bartali.
In 1982 I happened to ride from Cannes to Nice with Apo and his brother Lucien, Apo trying to instruct me in the local dialect, is it Occitan?
In fact his parents were Greek, and he was originally from Northern France.

Keith