[CR]Was "Pic of The Day " - Camille Danguillaume

(Example: History)

From: "Norris Lockley" <norris@norrislockley.wanadoo.co.uk>
To: <Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 11:28:06 +0100
Subject: [CR]Was "Pic of The Day " - Camille Danguillaume

In France the Danguillaume family isvery widely known and respected, both in cycling and social terms. No doubt the renown stemmed from Camille's fatal accident, but before that he was acknowledged as a talented rider and team-mate of Emile Idee. of whom a great deal was expected..possibly a rival to the great Italians of the day. Ironically it was Louison Bobet who emerged as the hero and legend from that National team

Two of Camile's nephews continued the family tradition, as did their father (but I just can't remember his palmares at the moment) - Jean -Paul and Jean- Louis. After a spell with the Mercier team in the early 70s, they teamed up with Peugeot, joining Bernard Thevenet's successful outfit. Of the two Jean-Paul was the more successful becoming well-known like his uncle as a "puncher" - a fast finisher, a talent that was to bring him many wins, including several T-d-F stages. I think he won three in one Tour, in the mid-70s. Jean-Paul, who lives in the Loire Valley not far from Tours, is still active in cycling and works in PR during the T-d-F. I missed meeting him by only a matter of a couple of hours last summer when he called on our camp site after a Tour stage..along with Charley Gaul. and Johnny Schleck two former members of the Luxemberg team in the 50s. A close friend of theirs runs the camp-site and usually each year during the Tour when it's in the Alps, close by, some of these former "greats" will call in for a meal and a chat... and a reminiscence or two..

A couple of years ago I won an auction on French Ebay for "genuine Tour de France bike from famous owner, with good provenance - Danguillaume" I was the only bidder as Ebay was very much in its infancy in France at the time. Knowing the bike was a Peugeot Pro. I assumed that it had belonged to none other than Jean-Paul... and was the very same three-stage winning machine... the one I had seen plastered on the covers so many magazines.

A French friend collected the bike for me and stored it in the locker of his apartment until I could collect it. The great day arrived...the door of the cupboard slowly and dramatically... and just as slowly and dramatically my face sank..my expression turned to gloom. The bike exposed was a Peugeot..it was the Pro model,,it had Danguillaume printed on the top-tube just in front of the seat lug..but it didn't have the silver enamel of Thevenet's 77 model..it didn.t have the checkboard transfers... it wasn't Jean-Paul's.. Instead it was enamelled in a gentle "blanc nacre" pearl white..the "damier" transfers were reduced to a pale shadow of their former selves...it was in fact a 1978 Team Pro...the property of the less well-known brother Jean-Louis Danguillaume..as the partially scrubbed off transfers testified. Great disappointment...but what a tremendous bike... a full Spidel groupset, Reynolds 531 SL tubing..a few extra "drillium" holes her and there. "18" stamped under the bracket shell..but incredibly light. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your point of view this particular Peugeot, although used in the Tour had never been "punched " like Jean-Pauls..hadn't got a string of stage wins to its "palmares...

Jean_Paul went into team management in the 80s with Mercier and for a spell in that decade owned the Mercier concession for Paris, their small shop being just about 200 yards from the Arc de Triomphe, on the Boulevard de la Grande Armee.

Coincidentally.. just a couple of months ago I won another Peugeot team-bike on French Ebay, but this time it was a 1948 /49 model...more worse for wear than the Danguillaume..and pulled out of a barn in a Burgundian village which I have christened "Marie Celeste" after the famous ghost ship..."They have all gone ..." was what one local told me about the inhabitants..or former inhabitants. No provenance this time...but very original. Lam calipers, Pelissier bars, Simplex gears and cages...very faded red paintwork, double-box lining, Nervex Serie Legere lugs..it's a 56cms..just like my Danguillaume,,,and I reckon that Emile Idee must have yanked on the knob on that Simplex Champion du Monde front lever mech when he went for the "le grand plateau" on his way towards winning the Criterium National de la Route in April 1949..And nobody can prove me wrong..if that's what I want... in my delirium..to believe.

Norris Lockley ... dreaming on... Settle UK