Now I know how to list the tandem I am bringing to Cirque: "Transform par Raymond Valance" The bike is supposed to be a track tandem modified by Parisan constructeur Valance for the road. It has no name or insignia on it. I have the original receipt for the transformation with prices for all the components. I also have a written recollection from the previous owner that it originally was built for a 1938 Austrian track racing team. The color: "Petroleum". Perhaps the top eyes or lug work will ring a bell with one of the experts at Cirque.
Paul Lee Huntington, NY
Snipped from what Jan Heine wrote:
"A friend in Paris has a bike that says on the downtube "Transform=E9e par Alex Singer." It is a 1940s men's bike (perhaps by Ducheron, Ernest Csuka doesn't remember exactly) that was converted in the early 1960s to a women's bike! They reworked the top head lug, made a new lug for the center of the seat tube, took off the top tube, added the diagonal tube and extra set of stays. They also added a bunch of braze-ons, etc., in the process, to get a very nice, if a bit inconsistent bike. The old lugs are a distinctly different style from the new one! But Singer did enough work on it to consider it theirs, of sorts, so it got their sticker. There are other bikes that don't even have the disclaimer - they simply say a name that isn't the original builder. (You can tell there wasn't much work at the time for them to undertake such radical surgery. The bike was owned by the wife of a good customer and friend, which may have had something to do with it.)
=46rames of hand-built bikes in France are/were considered so valuable that it was common to "re-do" them 20 or more years after they were built. Usually, they would take off the old braze-ons and add new ones. Many an Herse lost its Cyclo rear and "maison" front derailleurs, sometimes even the Herse cantilever brakes in favor of Huret Allvit (with a derailleur hanger brazed onto the old dropouts) and Weinmann centerpulls. Then the frame would be re-chromed, painted and lettered and was as good as new. Often, it is hard to tell the age of a bike without looking at the serial number or looking for other clues among the components. (Maxi-Car hubs rarely were replaced because they don't wear out. So they often reveal the true age, unless the owner switched wheels from bike to bike.)"