bikemig 

That's a cool pic. I like the minimal amount of seat post showing. This is "French" fit at its finest. I love the front derailleur shifting mechanism and the pump on the downtube.

Somewhere on the interwebs there is a list of the bikes that have won the TdF.

unterhausen

The title of this thread was driving me crazy so I changed it. You can stop making scat jokes now.

Koyote

You have removed this post's rather tiny amount of charm.

DMC707

the author of the thread goes by the handle of "windhchaser" , so he must have a lot of gastrological issues on his mind.

Reminding me of the popular Christopher Cross song --- I have to break - break like the wind - to be free again !

Litespud

This was pretty common - IIRC, in his earlier Tours, LA used a Litespeed Ti TT frame painted in Trek colors

Flip Flop Rider

I miss the Tour!!

63rickert

Nicholas Frantz, 1928 Tour de France. With 100km remaining in 19th stage Frantz broke his frame. No team support at hand. He borrowed a bike, a woman’s roadster weighing approximately 30 kilos. Also way too small for him. Rode that the entire 100km to finish line. Lost more than an hour, retained the lead. Wore yellow start to finish.

HTupolev

That's not "French fit," it's the result of sticking a 5'3" rider on a road bike with 700c-sized wheels, a level top tube, and healthy clearances.

63rickert

R
Not so much a French fit as a Robic fit. Robic was very short. No claim about his height can be believed at face value. Comparing him to others in photos it would seem he was likely about 5’0”. He never had a bike that fit. Builders offered him specials, he would only ride a big boy bike.

bikemig 

Sounds like Robic had Gallic panache and pushed the envelope when it came to French fit!

BlazingPedals

The bike doesn't win the race. The drugs do.

Flip Flop Rider

lol!!

indyfabz

Read the article linked to about Hampsten’s bike. His “Huffy” was a one off, but the rest of the team Huffys were made by Serotta. And yes, Lance did do that.

indyfabz

Utter fail. The Cross song is “Ride Like the Wind” and contains no such lyrics.

“Break Like the Wind” was one of the album titles in the spoof rockumentary “This is Spinal Tap.”

georgiaboy

Thanks, we think the same way about bicycles. Robic was one cool character. A true Frenchman who loved his peoples and French things. The frame makers he chose were like him and made real French bikes, all parts made in France even the tubing. At the time, the frame builder Thomann was using double butted Vitus tubing. Robic was an original cyclocross racer as well.

To express it more, in 1947 Reynolds actually released a frame set only weighing 3lbs while other framsets across the board were 4+ lbs. This is why I say any bicycle not made with Reynolds tubing was viewed as “inferior” by many.

Oh and BTW, here’s your list https://velosvintage.over-blog.com/ar...116479381.html

bikemig 

Thanks for the link to the list. I like French road bikes a lot. They have character. I rebuilt a 70s Motobecane Grand Record last year and I'm currently building up a 70s Mercier 300.

MarcusT

One of the very few videos from them I liked

Miele Man

I don't know about that particular image but at one time riders in the Tour had to do ALL of their own repairs.

Cheers

63rickert

Oh yes. Panache in buckets. YouTube has plenty of early 50s videos where you can watch Robic in action. In the mountains he is always in the action at the front. Always played the crowd and played the camera too. Easy to spot, he’s the tiny guy on a bike that’s too big who is impossibly aggressive.

RiceAWay

The bikes that were once considered top-of-the-line are now sneered at. I have a '98 Basso Loto that is less than four lbs heavier that my Trek Madone 6.9 and rides far better. Since I am 190 lbs the difference in weight from light to heavy is less than 1% so pretending that te weight of a late model steel bike and a carbon fiber bike is ridiculous.

A friend won't touch carbon fiber after his C40 literally fell apart and he bought a Tomassini. It is slightly heavier but it rides a lot better than CF. You can buy a custom Waterford "Racing" that is lighter than most carbon fiber bikes. I have a Lemond Zurich that is Reynolds 853 steel and is a lb heavier than my Trek and a lb lighter than my Colnago CLX 3.0 and rides better than any other bike I've had. After I finish converting the Colnago to Di2 I will start on the Lemond.

Vintage Schwinn

It happens in triathlons. You won't see the winners of IRONMAN 70.3 or full IRONMAN competions riding common inexpensive bicycles. It just doesn't happen in IRONMAN events because the competitors who are capable of winning are so good, with no weaknesses in each of the three, such that choosing to ride something that is less than the state of best current technology that is permitted, will result in precious seconds of time during the bike course which will ultimately cost them the chance of finishing first, second, or third.

Now it does happen often in other triathlons for winners of various age group classifications. Before you think, oh, yeah the older age group classifications.....you should think twice about that because often the older age groups have winners who often better the times of winning people in their twenties, thirties, and forties. Why? Because many of the fifty and sixty somethings are retired, and they train everyday seriously because they have time and they treat these run of the mill triathlons as if they were their own IRONMANS. You've gotta be really good at all three, or more importantly four.....TRANSITIONS too......swim...bike...run. As long as the bike is capable and light enough and geared properly to the characteristic nature of the rider, they have a decent shot at winning their age group, whatever it is, at run of the mill triathlons if they are an extremely strong swimmer and fast strong runner and have mastered doing transitions in minimal time.
A decent analogy might be, in motor car racing..............for example Stockcars at Talladega, or Indycars at Indianapolis....well in those cases if you don't have the latest technology that the rules allow, you have zero chance of being competitive, or even possibly qualifying for the race...............NOW on other track circuits that have far less speed where say the average race speed might be closer to 130mph instead of 200mph, many more race teams are competitive, not just the Joe Gibbs and Roger Penske teams with largest budget and best science and research.
Triathlons are more like golf than tennis. What I mean by that statement is that the course is distinctly different in different cities and locations. Weather conditions come in to play. The water conditions for the swim can vary greatly depending on the weather. One year to the next is never exactly the same even though you may do the exact same tri course for eight years in a row. Just like that there are golf courses that favor the bombers or longest hitters on the pro tour, and then there are golf courses that even the short hitters can compete and win at,..................you have certain triathlon courses where the bike portion does not provide a significant advantage for someone riding something carbon and 14 pounds versus someone riding something old, steel and weighing 23 pounds if the rider of the heavy bike is a great swimmer and great runner. Now you have no shot in an IRONMAN with something so outdated but yeah in most run of the mill tri's........you can be a podium finisher or possibly a winner if you're strong and a great runner and great swimmer and master the transitions. There is no way that in say an IRONMAN 70.3 that you'll be fast enough over the 56 miles on the bike compared to a similarly skilled competitor on a state of the art bike to finish first in your age group because the competition is too deep and those precious ticks of the clock....just ten or twelve seconds will matter significantly. A friend finished 4th in her age group in the 2018 AUGUSTA 70.3 IRONMAN competition on an old FUJI steel frame, lightweight and high quality bike from back in the day but obsolete by 2018 IRONMAN "standards". She bought this thirty year old FUJI for $100 off Craiglist while vacationing in South Carolina during the 4th of July week of 2017. Fifty-six miles on a FUJI from the eighties and she still finished 4th in the 2018 IRONMAN 70.3 at Augusta. That is pretty strong.

What I am telling all of you is that if you have ever thought of entering a triathlon , you should go and do it. Don't worry about having the latest and greatest machinery...............just use what you have that you're most comfortable riding as fast as you can. Train seriously on the swim and run as well as your hillclimbing and endurance on the bicycle. Look at it like a golfer or bowler might, and try to set a goal for an overall time based on your training preparation. You might think those tri people are absolutely nuts, or you might really love the challenge such that you might want to continue and get more competitive and possibly something better suited for riding to win, but you never know, you might not be that slow on whatever you already have right now. The run of the mill triathlons that you might be doing are not going to be 56 miles like the half iron man 70.3 events..............you'll probably be doing about 23 miles or less on the bike in most run of the mill triathlons, which you'll find to be EASY for you even on the more hilly courses. It is a heck of a lotta fun. Hey, if you don't like the idea of doing both the swim, run, and the bike, you know there are many that have relay teams where for example you get one person to do the swim, you do the bike portion, and you get the fastest running person that you know to do the run portion.....................then when you register, you can even give your three person team, some wacky nickname. It is fun. Yeah, the tri people sort of think of the relay teams as 2nd class citizens who aren't real tri participants but they still minimally respect them as participants.
Look at it this way, you're never gonna be a tour de france participant, and likely you are far too weak to be an IRONMAN competitor, because although you're good on the bicycle, you're far too weak in the swimming and running. It is potentially possible that if you were to seriously train that possibly within one year, you could get to the point where you would not be a total embarassment in the swimming and running portion. If you were to train everyday, within two years, you could get to be almost competitive and ready for an IRONMAN 70.3. A great bicyclist that isn't already a skilled strong swimmer and a strong runner has zero chance of being immediately competitive in any IRONMAN 70.3. It will take a minimum of one year or more of training to become a decent swimmer and a far better than average runner. Cyclists have traditionally had a more difficult time becoming good tri competitors, than someone who is an accomplished swimmer and marathon winner
So if you think you can't hack it, or would post embarassing times in the swim and run portion of a triathlon, you can always find triathlons that do also feature relay team participants...................that way all you do is ride like the wind and then have two buddies one who swims like Mark Spitz and the other who runs like the 21 year old Kenyan who won the Boston and New York Marathons and the Peachtree Road Race. You'll have a blast. I'm betting that you go for weeks without removing the participant number from your helmet and bike frame, to show off that you rode a triathlon. In the future when a vaccine solves the current crisis and again allows for normal activities and events, you will find it incredibly fun to do a triathlon, even if only as part of the bicycle part of a relay team.

CliffordK

I would think by the 60's and 70's they would have had team support, although the rules have morphed over the years.

Eugène Christophe

1913

gear64

Lance's fall from grace was the first domino in my rising disillusionment with big time sports. From collegiate D1, to Olympics, to major pro leagues of US, I spend very little time or money on any of it any more.

50PlusCycling

No. Winning bikes used to be much simpler than today, but they have never been cheap. When I first got into cycling as a kid in the late 70’s I lusted after a Masi road racer at my LBS. The price for the bike fitted with a Campy SR kit was $1800. Our monthly rent for our Orange County California house in those days was $300 per month. As I was earning only $15 per month delivering papers, it was a little out of my budget.

CliffordK

Back in the 70's, or early 80's, a decent used Nuovo Record or similar bike might run one about $300, and I think the weight was about 23 lbs.

Of course the TDF riders weren't riding used bikes.

Carbon Fiber did start popping up in the late 70's and early 80's, but it might have been another decade before it became mainstream (and really expensive).

Alan aluminum bikes? Vitus?

Of course, there were also detractors of the early glued bikes.