>From what I have gathered about this List over the past couple or three years, one thing is certain and that is that more than a few members have watched the Tour de France live, and witnessed and probably taken part in that monstrous give=away, or should that be "throw-away" that is the Caravane Publicitaire. That being the case you may have noticed a battered old van tagging along towards the end of the convoy... a van with pictures of numerous Pro team shirts and strips painted on its sides. It doesn't always do all the stages but you are almost certain to see it at the final stage, parked at the top of the Champs Elysees, quite near the Arc de Triomphe. It belongs to Cycles Marcarini.
The driver is usually Gianni Marcarini, a former Pro in the 60/70s, once a co-equipier of Eddy Merckx, who settled down, after hanging up his wheels, to open a very impressive bike shop at Hennebont in lower Brittany. Almost thirty years or so ago I chanced upon his shop when I was out on a training ride and while following some of the post-Tour criteriums; the opportunity of a visit wasn't to be missed.
Gianni is a small compact intense Italian..and his wife who worked in the shop at that time looked as though she had just stepped off the set of the film "Valley of the Dolls". "Bonjours "were exchanged all around and as the pleasantries and introductions died away Gianni rushed off into his back-room and emerged clutching a small can in his left hand, and raising that arm he pointed at the can with his right middle finger and enquired "Le col Dunlop! Disponible???" which was his way, it transpired, of asking me if I could get hold of a supply of this UK-produced light cream-coloured tub cement. To reinforce his enquiry he added "C'est le meilleur" "It's the best!"
I must have been the first English owner of a bike shop to enter his premises, and I think that Gianni thought that God had answered his prayers when I arrived. It appeared that Le Col Dunlop was considered by many Pro riders to be the best tub glue available "Indispensable, Monsieur!" .."Just can't do without it!". Gianni's problems were that he could not get hold of a regular supply in France.
he went on to explain that in his experience most Pro's mechanics used a type of two-pack approach to sticking on tubs. First having ensured that the rim was clean and abraded with the end of a file, the mechanic applied a thick coat of the thick garrishly terra-cotta-coloured Clement cement to the rim..then a thin layer of "col Dunlop" to the tubular..both articles then being left to dry. When dry a second coat of the indispensible but increasingly -hard -to- find "col Dunlop" was applied to the tubular, and a similar coat to the rim. When almost dry, the tub was rolled on to the rim, inflated and allowed to dry. The resulting bond was pronounced to be "Impeccable, Monsieur".
Intent on securing a contract with me for a never=ending supply of "le Col Dunlop" before I left his shop, Gianni asked me what I was going to do the following evening...would I care to eat dinner with the family, meet some of his friends..talk about some "beeeessness". As I was camping out just down the coast and cooking over a butane stove, the invitation was too good to miss. However thinking that I was about to decline his offer he continued.."...you know Eddy, Francesco et Bernard.vont diner aussi..." to which I fumbled the response to the effect of "...Merckx , Moser..Thevenet..?" "Oui, Monsieur!" I had been invited to eat dinner with these three "Greats".
I time-trialled back to the tent and burbled out to my wife the nature and extent of M. Marcarini's kind invitation. Now my wife has a highly developed sense of privilege and of social ranking, of who should mix with whom..and she certainly did not think, and told me so in no uncertain terms..that I should think myself a good enough cyclist to dine out with the Cannibal, Mr Paris-Roubaix Moser and Bernard the recent winner of his second T-d-F.
And so it came to pass...But I had learnt how the Pros stuck on their tubs, and had that information reinforced the hard way when, in 1983 I managed by some freak of fortune, to find myself right in the middle of the Paris-Roubaix caravan of "suiveurs", and watching the Mercier mechanics swop tubs in the back of their wagon at the "Ravitaillement" pits at Valenciennes. " Clement et Dunlop! Impeccable!"
Norris Lockley..never able to forget the viscosity of terra-cotta of Clement tub cement..Settle, UK