[CR] Whatevere Happened to Urago?

(Example: Framebuilders:Masi)

Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:22:26 -0700
From: "Norris Lockley" <norris.lockley@yahoo.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Subject: [CR] Whatevere Happened to Urago?


I suppose I could ask - Whatever happened to my URL?

Chuck has pointed out that I made a mistake in the URL - it just did not work..so here are the correct ones:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cyclecrank/urago   or   http://www.flickr.com/photos/cyclecrank/sets/72157615689065755

The early Uragos ie the NIce-built ones were always elegant and built around classic French angles ie 72// for the road frames, perhaps a little less for the randonneurs and 74// for the track frames.. Just as Bob Jackson, Whitaker and Mapplebeck,  JF Wilson and a few other British buiders had done in the early 50s ie take standard Oscar Egg, mainly, and reprofile them to produce something a little more refined and decorative, so Urago did this with Nervex Serie Legere and the Mark 1 Pro lugs. Fork crowns were also often improved in this way...but for many an enthusiast the crowning feature of a Urago frame from that post-war era was the ful wrap-over seat=-stay eyes. These tapered from the seat stay into a slim and elegant triangular section before transforming again into a round section over the seat lug itself. However  on some of the very top models  the triangular section carried on right over the top - a unique and high personalising feature.

The mid-life crisis Uragos form the 70s were typically 73// models from the large producers in St Etienne and as such had very few features than made them readily identifiable as Uragos. Additionally the transfers lost their classy originality and became vinyl self-adhesives, more often than not in white.

The 1980 Duret- made (or at least supplied ) frames were far more Itailanate in design and had 74// angles, shorter wheelbases and generally snappier paint finishes. Duret, a firm as French as Cammembert cheese is still based in Argent-sur-Sauldre about two hours south of Paris adopted the brand name GELIANO for its frames in around 1980 in order to make the frames sound Italian so that they would compete with the influx and success of Italian brands at that time. Interestingly, the firm now markets most of its frames under the original J-M Duret name.

Franck Duret the new young man at the helm has just this week launched a new web-site - his first real attempt at marketing via the internet.

For nostalgia lovers the site has a historical section which makes interesting viewing. The shop shown on several photos still exists as the firm's HQ - the only difference between then and now is that the windows are now larger and the good old names such as TERROT and HELYETT ( made just up the road in Sully-sur-Loire) have been painted out of the facade.

The site is at: http://www.velo-cycle-vtt.com/historique. As the page opens just stroke the cursor across the page to get it moving.

More shots of Geliano frames and bikes at : http://www.flickr.com/photos/cyclecrank/geliano.

Happy viewing.

Norris Lockley...Settle Uk

(if I were a younger man I think I would start up a new section of my business called Velos/Cycles Nostalgiques)