I'm just catching up on some of the topics discussed on the List i n recent days and have stumbled upon the many contributions ...and contrave rsy..that this particular frame provoked.
First of all I am grateful to Lynn Travers for bringing the frame to my notice via a private emailed enquiry...and by later inviting me to contribu te to the general debate, and secondly to Fred Raednor for outing the frame to the List. Again I am grateful to Lynn for deciding not to bid for the frame, because that gave me the opportunity to have a go for it myself.
As the old adage says "There's no fool like and old fool"..and Yes! this old fool behaved true to his age and managed to win the auction early this morning, thereby adding another Sauvage-Lejeune to my collection. However in my defence of my actions I have to state that I did not discover the PC/ non-PC debate about this frame's headbadge until after I had won the auctio n ( yes! Nelson...I know that your Sauvage porteur bike presently residing in my barn in France has an enamelled headbadge bearing the same representa tion of a native holding a spear menacingly..but don't tell the others on t he List!).
There is something of a chicken-and-egg thing about the Sauvage name and the headbadge ie which came first, the name or the picture. In France as i n England..and presumably in the States, "SAUVAGE" and/or "SAVAGE" is quite a popular surname. In my area of the north of the UK I can think of a land -owning family, headed by a Lord, that bears this name. And so I had always assumed the "SAUVAGE" bikes carried the maker's family name, and that the picture on the headbadge was simply a bit of humour..perhaps sick and mispl aced these days..at the maker's expense. You could hardly call a spear-bear ing native docile, the antonym of savage...and please don't attack me for&n bsp;using the word "native" as it is meant in its purest sense. O r am I being too naive?
Dale Phelps plead for some sanity in the discussion of this frame, so I intend to try to contribute in the best spirit of the CR List, and clarify some points about the frame.
It is identical in every way, possibly even to the poor brazing of the r ear drop-outs into the chainstay, and to the not-too-good enamel finish, to the other two Sauvage-Lejeunes in my stable....but while the others have m ost of the transfers, neither of them has a head-badge/transfer. The other two frames belonged to Henri Anglade and Bernard Guyot, both very acc omplished pro riders in the 60s..and I have provenance to indicate that the y were used in races such as the Tour de france, the French Championships e tc.
The Ebay frame itself could have similar pro origins. My "Guyot" L ejeune came from the same Ebay seller, who, lives in the SW suburbs of Pari s, just about 20minutes' car drive around the ring-road from the forme r Lejeune factory. I was offered this frame last year by the then owner, wh o then sold it to the present seller. At the time of being offered the fram e, the owner explained that he had bought it as a complete Campagnolo-equip ped machine, and that on dismantling the bike to sell the parts on Ebay, he had discovered.,wedged into a cavity between the bracket shell and the chi nstay socket, a piece of paper on which was written the name ".G. Groussard ". He had kept the oil-smeared paper as evidence
George Groussard was of course one of the two well-known brothers who ro de in the 60s for the Sauvage-Lejeune team, and while he was not as big a h itter as his brother, Joseph, he did manage to finish 5th in the '64 T-d-F, 4th in the French Champs in '66, 19th in the World's Champs etc etc.
The frame itself is pure "Bernard Carre". Bernard was a jobbing builder by all accounts..and I think that he was a "two-a-day-man"..meaning that he built two frames a day, like shelling peas from a pod. The Sauvage-Lejeune , Lejeune, and many other "trade" frames that he built are all built to the same recipe. The curved steel top-eye mentioned by Fred is virtually, but not exclusively, his trade-mark. Normally when building a frame for a pro r ider, Carre would stamp the rider's initials, in capitals, vertically down the centre-line of the top-eye, using a centre-punch dot between the letter s. My "Anglade" frame has "H.A", the "Guyot" has "B.G"..and I have seen pic tures of Jan Janssen's frame with "J.J". I have a Carre-built frame with "J .A" stamped in the top-eye..and it's Gitane turquoise blue..and I thought, when I bought it, that it might have belonged to Maitre Jacques himself fro m his spell with Gitane in the early 60s, but the size and geometry do not seem correct. And it is worth remembering that Carre built for Anquetil..an d Geminiani..and Anglade..and Janssen..and no doubt a whole lot of other ri ders.
The Sauvage-Lejeune on Ebay was a bit "rough-looking", and any framebuil der on this List would, without bragging, have been able to say that they could have done "this" or "that" better. But pro cycling in the 60s wa s an arduous career, the roads in the Tour even were often not much better than gravel, so a frame had to be simply a work-horse, a means to an end. N o point in having a wonderful flambuoyant paint job that would chip off on the first col in the Alps. Even in the early 80s, I remember watching the P aris-Roubaix and admiring the turquoise flam-over-chrome finish on the Gita ne bikes..but closer inspection showed that this had detached itself form l arge sections of various tubes...and the season had only just got underway. .
As to the detail of the frame, the use of the Prugnat lugs and Wagner cr own was very popular with Carre., as was an RGF bracket shell. Drop-outs on these frames were always Campagnolo long ones, but the fronts and rears di d not always match ie sometimes both sets would have mudguard eyes, sometim es no eyes, sometimes just one set, could be back or front. would have eyes . The bespoke rear cable stop was always used in order to work with the Maf ac Dural Forge centre pull brakes. On his "trade" frames Carre seldom used reinforcement tangs with the seat-stay and chain-stay bridges, but he alway s did with his "private" frames. In fact an examination of the brake bridge on this Sauvage-Lejeune would probably show it to be a piece of not-too-we ll-seamed tubing.
One thing that Carre does appear to have been meticulous about, in his s earch for a perfectly functioning frame, were the cable runs. The rear brak e outer cable was carried at the head-tube end of the top-tube throug h an eye placed about 3/4" from the cable stop, itself thereby ensuring tha t the inner cable had a kink-free route to that delicately made and positio ned rear cable stop. Carre also always brazed a little eye on th e leading edge of the rear gear-side drop-out in order to ensure a free-run ning cable to the derailleur. Remember there were no such last-minute trick s as plastic cable ties in those days to prevent wayward cables from becomi ng a nuisance. none of the Sauvage-Lejeune or Lejeune "pro" frames of that era had gear lever bosses on the D/T, just a small triangular plate b razed in place to butt the double cable stop against for use with Campag ba r-end controls.
Not particularly pretty...but what a great ride....and this latest frame is JUST my size! Oh!..and don't look too closely at the mitres in the bott om bracket shell...Carre obviously did not have access to either a lathe or a milling machine..and he appears to have been very selective about exactl y which ends of the frame tubes he needed to file to the most accurate mitr es.
Well Dale..and of course Dale....and Fred ..I hope that has been helpful .
Norris Lockley, Settle, UK
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