Hello and thank you for this well researched and fascinating account. I have begun with a bike I got at auction on the basis of sketchy details I had read on the brand and its weight/look and have ended up with a deeper understanding of the nature of the French bike industry! Whilst researching some of the French industries that contributed to this bike I came across this re Vitus tubing: "In about 1993 Atelier de la Rive introduced a superlight tube set called "Prestige", which as I recall was a heat-treated version of the 18 MCDV6 steel but drawn down to about 0.8/0.4 mms. This material did not do much to stem the Company's decline until it stopped production of steel tubing altogether around 1999/2000. Since the late 70s, the company had had a joint venture with Bador and CLB-Angenieux to produce the renowned Duralinox range of frames - frames which were quite revolutionary in their time - and which sold well as long as the likes of Sean Kelly rode and won on them. The last model in that range the 992 actually introduced some 8 or 10 years ago the now ubiquitous "lost headset" design.
The company changed owners very rapidly from the mid-90s onwards and was owned at one time by Time and at another by LOOK.. From a height of 196 employees it reduced to around 20." LOOK cam to my attention. My pedals are LOOK quick release. They may give a clue to its age.... but it is not obviously top of the range bike you refer to. Fascinating story you have Norris!
thanks again. Wondering how you would advise I treat the frame if I wanted to get this bike up scratch? It has surface rust.
Gianni Sydney Australia
On 14/01/2010, at 9:36 PM, Norris Lockley wrote:
> At the time in the 80s when the French bike industry was fast
> falling apart
> after a rapid decline in export sales, and in the faceof cheap
> imports from
> Taiwan., Mercier, one of the icons of that industry - remember a
> certain
> darling of the French populace Raymond Poulidor, Poupou-the Eternal
> Second
> - became one of the casualties
>
> Down in the Forez area of the south of the Auvergne region, in the
> industrial city of St Etienne, heart of the French cycle industry,
> famous
> names were biting the dust. Already from Rue de Gutenberg firms such
> as
> Cizeron, the manufacturer of bikes with names such as Jacques
> Anquetil,
> Francesco Moser (Yes the French -made variety,)Raphael Geminiani and
> Louison
> Bobet, had already closed and Mercier - known for Mercier, Francis
> Pelissier, AndreLeducq etc etc was also ready to close its doors.
>
> The story goes that the boss of one of France's retail trading
> giants -
> think Auchan, Decathlon , Leclerc, Champion..etc etc - himself a keen
> cyclist and eternal fan of Poulidor, thought that the demise of
> Mercier
> would be worse for the morale of the French than the invasion of
> France by
> Hitler had been. So he bought the name of the company and launched
> the brand
> Le Velo de Mercier.
>
> As far as I can recall the launch of the brand was not immediate,
> but it had
> been whispered about in trade circles, and I think that the first
> bikes
> started emerging in the late-80s/early 90s. The relaunch by the
> retail
> tycoon was a pledge of faith in the French cycle industry and was to
> amount
> almost to a one-man effort to support the whole of the industry as
> it was a
> condition of relaunch that the bikes should be Tout Francais..ie all
> the
> components should be French.
>
> Hence Gianni's bike has components from Stronglight and CLB - both St
> Etienne-based companies, Simplex gears from Dijon...not too far
> away,probably the hubs are from Perrin and the bars from Belleri,
> firms also
> based in the St Etienne area. Just possibly the saddle is a Perache
> and the
> pedals Lyotards..both St Etienne, or just outside.
>
> The frame was probaby built by Cycles France Loire, based in
> Andrezieux-Boutheon, a small industrial town about fifteen or so
> miles north
> of St Etienne, that also accommodates St Etienne's official aiport.
> However
> the tubing is most likely to be one of the Vitus range from down the
> valley
> to the east of St Etienne. Poulidor worked from time to time, ie
> international shows, for this company.
>
> Unfortunately the tycoon's plans did not work out entirely as he had
> planned
> and Cycles France-Loire went bust in 1993. The company was revived
> and as
> the rest of the French accessory manufacturers went to the wall, so
> France-Loire, resorted to buying in frames from Taiwan and kitting
> them out
> with whatever equipment, largely Shimano, it could buy in.
> Fortuately the
> vast majority of the firm's production was of mountain bikes,so
> Shimano was
> fine.
>
> I think that in the mid-90s the bikes were sold either exclusively
> through
> the Auchan or the Champion supermarket chain of shops. The top of
> the range
> road bike..in a range of about two models, was an single gauge TANGE
> aero-tubed TIG-welded frame painted in metallic lemon yellow and
> equipped
> with the Campagnolo Avanti groupset. At 199 pounds sterling it was a
> steal.
>
> I bought several..sold them on quickly and then had the mad idea of
> doing a
> deal with the factory for the sole rights to the Le Velo de Mercier
> name for
> the UK. A visit to the factory was taken up, discussions entered
> into..and I
> left later in the day with an invitation to buy a large stock of
> Vitus 979
> Duralinox bikes equipped with out-of-date Campag groupsets. They
> were of
> course, the bankrupt stock of the former Cycles France Loire company
> that
> had, in it's ill-fated pursuit of racing glory promoted the SEM-
> France-Loire
> pro team whose captain de route was none other than Sean Kelly.
>
> But that is another story.
>
> Norris Lockley
>
> Settle , UK