There was just one on eBay that was very similar to mine, same decals, but
with different lugwork and no chrome tip and crown on the fork. (
http://ebay.com/
I don't pretend that this has any serious collecter value, but it's an odd marque as opposed to so many Peugeots, Raleighs, and Schwinns in my garage. I have several wheel sets and rims to pick from here, by the caliper and pad position, I can see it used 27" rims. I was also wandering when this was most likely made? By the components, I would guess early to mid '70's. I was told that the Solida cranks were a later version of Nervar? (later 70's?). However, the Simplex shift lever bracket uses the earlier raised round style. The shift levers are standard Prestige black plastic. By the equipment present on mine, it could be anywhere from the mid 60's to late 70's.
I agree that this was probably sold through a large retailer or offered as a one time deal to dealers through a supplier, if it was sold here and not brought here privately. Gitane did import many bikes to the US, but they were never very common in this imediate area. Peugeot, Motobecane, Raleigh, Columbia, Schwinn, Ross, and Trek were the common names sold by local shops. Most of the higher end bikes sold back then were Peugeot PX-10's, Raleigh Competitions, and Schwinn Paramounts. The biggest sellers were probably the Peugeot U0-8 and Raleigh Grand Prix to the average buyer. The Jacques Anquetil looks to be in line with these two as far as quality.
Thanks,
Joe McKishen
Vineland, NJ
Well Joe you might just have opened up a real can of worms with this enquiry. In a sense the "Who Built Jaques Anquetil bikes/frames/" story is a bit like the "Who Built Eddy Merckx Bikes?" until Eddy set up his own factory.
In the late 50s/early 60s when Jaques was winning his earl T-d-Fs his bikes were Helyetts, made at Sully-su-Loire in central France. His next supplier was Gitane at Nantes at the western end of the Loire, and then he had his own marque, with those large railway station type down-tube decals.
The French market is inundated or was before the Taiwanese stepped in, with bikes bearing the names of most of the heroes of French cycling - Poulidor, geminiani, Delisle, Hinault, Thevenet, Stablinski, even Guimard and.. Louis Ocana. Yes I know he's not French but in the 70s you could still buy a middle-of-the-road sports bike made in France with Odana stickers.
The firm who seems to have made more of these "in honour of " bikes is Gitane, and I would suspect that your bike is Gitane-made.Very often these models a man's sports and a mixte would be sold through large supermarkets rather then through the specialist bike shops because generally in the 70s and 80s French manufacturers were very loyal to their retailers in terms of brand.
The "Jaques Anquetil" bikes I have seen answering Joe's description were generally sprayed silver and had the hero's name stuck on the down tube with self adhesive decals written in a flimsy gold, possibly edged with another colour, in a type of script lettering.. The Cyrille Guimard bikes were virtually identical.
There are lightweight Anquetils in the UK but the arguments rage over here as to who built them. certainly some were built for Ron Kitchings, possibly by MKM for the later frames but for the earlier ones , who knows, possibly a French builder. For that matter who built for Andre Bertin in the 50/60/70s? I know that some of the sports bikes bearing the 70s style Merckx transfers were built in northern France, in a region where there were several jobbing factories/
But as for your Anquetil.. it's most likely to be Gitane.. and there has been an importer of Gitane for years in the States, as I understand.
Norrsi Lockley