It feels like old times again! I've just got back from a reasonabl y fruitful buying , but otherwise fairy hectic , session in France and have , therefore ,earned the luxury of sitting back and wallowing in the c ontributions to CR List.
Regarding the matter of the CONCORDE frames and bikes recently being dis cussed, Dale is fifty percent correct in saying that the marque is Dutch. T he brand, for that is what
CONCORDE is..a marque created in response to a marketing idea, never actually fulfilled its original Europe-wide dimensions and int entions.
In the early 80s at a time when the European racing-bike market was in f ull expansion there were dozens of small and medium-sized importers/wholesa lers/distributors on the mainland of Europe and in Holland and Belgium, par ticularly, there was a considerable number completely out of all proportion it seemed to the size of the racing cohort in those countries. In France t here were quite a few regionally-based distributors, while in Spain there w ere a few very large organisations, such as Comet, who traded unchallenged by wholesalers in other parts of Europe - the Iberian peninsula being its o wn discrete trading zone. In other parts where boundaries touched, particul arly in the Benelux countries and France, but to a lesser extent France, co mpetition for market share was intense.
Enter onto centre stage the three Muskateers. In Holland the Rentme ister company had a strong market, while over the border in Belgium Veltec sold strongly against considerable competition, and down in the far SW corner of France, cut-off on one side by the Atlantic, on another by the P yrenees, and on the third by vineyards, in the city of Auch, there was Jose Alvarez. Auch is the capital city of Gascony, the land of the legend ary"Three Muskateers". Jose was the Napoleon of the French cycle trade even though he was a very long way from Paris.
Some years ago I could have remembered the names of the two Benelux mast er-traders, possibly one was Philip Desjnerk , or words to that effect. The se two were very ambitious in business terms, entrepreneurs who had outgrown the market in their own countries, and greedy to expand into t he wider European market, with France being the obvious next target. So the y agreed on a business plan but were wise enough to recognise that it would be better to have Alvarez "on board" rather than as a competitor, assuming that as he was based so far away in the south, the northern and central ar eas of France were wide open to themselves. The tripartite alliance decided to launch its own brand, that brand being "CONCORDE" ie an agreement. The aim of the alliance was to dominate mainland-Europe, by using a a pin cer action from north and south, and squeezing everyone else out of th e market in the middle
However Alvarez was much shrewder than the others - he wasn't called "th e Napoleon of the Cycle Industry" without very good reason. On the on e hand he had Europe-wide distribution rights for such things as ranges of chain cycle locks ,a model of cycle lamp..and pannier baskets, but he also had sole rights to all LOOK products, Vitus products, the Campag concession for France and Spain etc etc. He decided that he didn't need the others as much as they needed him..and so the third and final member of the triumvir ate decided to drop out of the concorde...the other two continuing...and ve ry successfully so..to build up a very impressive empire, but one which nev er really challenged Alvarez. I doubt whether he ever had a sleepless night worrying about his competitors from the Benelux.
Dale was correct in stating that at one time the frames came from the CI OCC company. It is my understanding that they were built in Italy and then shipped in primer coat only to Belgium where they were sprayed in their dis tinctive styles by Marc Van Yperzeele, at Gerrardsbergen, not far from Ghen t. Marc had his own brands of bikes such as "Lady Diana"..and "Shrapnell" W hen I asked him why he had chosen such a peculaliar name he thought I was r eferring to "Lady Diana" When I said that it was "SHRAPNELL" that puz zled me, I realised that he has no idea whatsoever of the real meaning of t he word. He had, he explained, heard the word frequently when he was young, it being often spoken by his grand-father. Knowing that the word was not F rench or Flemish he decided that it must be quite an important English one ; hence his decision to adopt it.
Marc's top-end brand is GIACOMELLI...and he produces some very attractiv e racing machines under that name. It was not really very surprising in the late 80s and early 90s that they tended to resemble very closely another " Belgian" brand, that of CONCORDE.
For those CR members who have followed the Tour of Flanders, or should t hat be the Liege-Bastogne-Liege -, you will know of the dreaded "Mur de Gra mmont" - the steep heavily cobbled and very narrow hill that rears up out o f the town square of Grammont and up which, very often, the riders opt to p ush rather than ride their machines. The Mur is often decisive to the final outcome of the race. Well Grammont is the Flemish name for Gerrardsb ergen..and Marc's showroom is only a five-minute ride from that market plac e, where, after the last rider has passed by the spectators rush into the c afes to eat mayonaise-sprinkled chips accompanied by goblets of dark brown beer brewed by Trappist monks, while watching the rest of the race on the cafe's TV set. It's a way of life..quite a fantastic experience.
And if while watching the race on TV or video, you chance to see the lar ge letters GIA stencilled across the cobbles at the start of the worst sect ion of the "Mur" then you will know that Marc has been active with his sten cil and paint brush getting some quick and excellent publicity for his GIAC OMELLI brand. I imported GIACOMELLI for a humber of years, but never really warmed to the name, as it reminded me a brand of ice-cream that had been s old extensively in my home town when I was a kid. The link between ic e lollies and elegant bike frames just never seemed appropriate.
Norris Lockley...Settle UK
Norris Lockley
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