In response to Angel Garcia's query about his Vitus 979 La Roue d'Or frame, Mordecai Silcer advised that there is a bike shop of that name in Paris.
Ah well... all good things come to an end. Mordeca is was correct in his advice but sadly the La Roue d'Or, just around the corner from the Gare du Nord, on the Rue de la Fontaine has closed its doors for the last time..they closed a few years ago, according to a French retailer mate.
Once a n extremely interesting shop with some interesting Italian frames in, form smaller makers, the owner branched out and took on some distributing responsilities.. then went into mail-order..then need bigger premises.. then took on a partner... then closed down. That's how the story was told to me.
La Roue d'Or, meaning quite simply "the wheel of gold" as opposed to the "golden wheel" is quite a popular and there is, or possibly was, as I haven't called in recently, a classy shop by the same name in Macon, just off the the A6 autoroute in Burgundy.
Through the 80s and into the 90s there was a wholesaler / organiser of a chain of independant retail shops, based in Perpignan, trading by the name VELODOR - the "golden bike" i joined this "groupement" of retailers in 1983, and was unique in being the only shop among the 76 others who was not based in France, apart from one in Martinique and the other in Guadeloupe - both French territories. The "groupement" used to have its own enormous and impressive catalogue in full colour, with the name of the individual shops emblazoned on the front cover. On the last two inside pages was the list of the names and addresses of all the members of the group. Way down at the bottom was my own address - "CYCLES BESPOKE, Place du Marche, Settle, Royaume Uni" Over the years we had exclusive rights in France to Moser, Colnago, Dancelli, Piazza, Eddy Merckx, Spinella, Look, and of course, Velodor.
Curiously the President of the Group was an Italian by the name of GHELFI - which is, I believe the name of the founders of the FREJUS marque.
Norris Lockley, Cycles Bespoke, Settle... thinking that those really were good days..