[CR]Re: Flandria and Superia Road Bikes

(Example: History)

Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 09:00:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Brett Horton" <bretthorton@thehortoncollection.com>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
cc: jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net
cc: jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net
Subject: [CR]Re: Flandria and Superia Road Bikes

I own the "Flandria" that Freddy Maertens was riding when he won the world championship in 1976. It is Campy equipped and was made by Ugo DeRosa. Through the years, Freddy's favored makers were DeRosa and Colnago.

My understanding from Freddy is the actual Flandria bikes, even at the high end, did not meet the standards of most of the riders on his team. The riders, at their own expense, would have frames built elsewhere then have them painted and decaled on the sly at the Flandria factory. (As an aside, the majority of the jerseys and bikes displayed at the Flandria exhibit in Belgium are replicas and many of them are pretty pathetic replicas at that.)

Freddy has a hilarious story about getting caught by the owner of Flandria when a batch of Freddy's DeRosa frames were being painted at the Flandria factory. Freddy tells how he received a phone call from the Flandria owner asking him to come to the factory straight away but not telling Freddy why. When Freddy went into the owners office he saw his partially painted DeRosa frames sitting against the office wall. The owner, who was plenty pissed, produced a hacksaw and proceeded to saw through the top tubes of each of the frames!

Brett Horton San Francisco, California

Jerry Moos wrote: List member Eddy Albert and I each have an early 70's Flandria team replica, with full original Dura-Ace gruppo, like the ones used by Freddy Maertens and Michael Pollentier. <snip>

Todd Teachout wrote: <snip> I have never seen a 60's and 70's era top end flandria with white panels like the team riders used. Because of that and looking at the details between the pro bike photos and what Flandria sold as its top line bike, I believe that the team contracted with another builder who then painted the frames with the red frandria team colors. It's just my theory and speculation, though.

.