It was a very unprepossessing photograph really, just a picture of a bike with a red frame with light blue head and seat tubes panels, the whole thing just leaning up against a stack of cardboard boxes in somebody's garage, next to somebody's house, somewhere in France...But there was something familiar about it..almost compelling me to place a bid. Just how high would I be prepared to go?
True..there were some remnants of decals clinging to the seat tube..and even on the second rate photo these appeared to be of the shiny 1960s self-adhesive aluminum-foil variety. No other clues to the bike's identity. The seller's reply to my emailed enquiry said the bike was a "Reynolds" because the green and black and gold sticker said so. No mention of the words on the glittering silver ones. Nevertheless it deserved some sort of bid
In the end a friend in Ireland bid and won the auction for me..the best bid being the starting price as there were no other takers..and I had to be on my way to France before the auction ended. After a complicated series of mobile phone calls on both sides of the English Channel, I had the information I needed..the telephone number of the seller in Macon..the deal was done, Wasn't this what the European Economic Community was supposed to be about..cross border trading... ?
Several days later, the vital connection made..the long journey skirting the banks of France's central canal network along which barges had carried kitchen pots to be enamelled ..through the vineyards of Burgundy, descending with increasing urgency down the long tarmac ramps towards the valley of the River Saone.. and Macon..with silver and blue TGV trains expressing and whoooossshhhing their way just as quickly in the opposite direction.
Journey's end..a meeting outside the Sports Palace..looking for a blue Renault Kangoo...but every other car in Macon is a blue Renault Kango. Here it comes..an arm beckoning from an unwound window saying in the universal language "Suivez-moi" - Follow me!
We followed the arm , my travelling companion and me in our metallic blue Citroen..almost every other car in Macon is a metallic blue Citroen Xantia... until we pulled up outside a bungalow in a street, in a suburb of Macon, in Burgundy, in France ..got out of the car, a quick shake of hands with the seller..no kisses on the cheek...entered the garage ..saw the cardboard boxes just as they were in the Ebay photograph..then saw the bike..red enamel with light blue panels on the head and seat tubes..just as the photograph had shown..got the frisson of excitement as I read the seat tube transfer...this was something special..this was worth the drive.... this was a "Sauvage-Lejeune", one of the bikes of Tour de France legend..of battles "mano- a - mano" against the Merciers, Geminianis..and Gitanes and Helyetts..not to mention the upstart bikes from Spain and Italy and Belgium.
The sweeping top-eyes, nestling under the Ideale saddle, its leather shiny from sweat and toil , the writing rubbed away long ago by the friction of a million pedal strokes..shouted "B. Carre" - frame builder to the Champions of France! But "Non!" Not "Carre"....but an anonymous other by the initials of "H.A".,.stamped vertically into the curving surface of the steel. Dismay..is this what I had paid my 49.99 euros for..the money by now flying in its envelope towards my agent in Ireland?
My companion's eyes glazed over..he seemed on the brink of some enormous outburst of anger or frustration..or worse. But I had forgotten his phenomenal memory for all things Tour de France..the number of teeth on Anquetil's freewheel as he wrestled up the cruel inclines of the Puy de Dome giving his all in his battle for the victory and the hearts of the Frenchm public against his rival Poulidor..or the length of the top-tube of Simpson's Peugeot that lay beneath the Englishman on the slopes of Mont Ventoux..
He couldn't keep the secret of the red frame with the light blue panels to himself any longer..had to divulge the explanation of the mysterious code..."HENRY ANGLADE...get it? H.A ! he rode for Pelforth-Sauvage-Lejeune in the 60s..was second in the Tour in 65 ..same year he was Champion of France for the second time..and he road with an 11 cms Ambrosio stem just like this one ,..and deep square bars just like these..and he ALWAYS used Universal brake levers with Mafac stirrups just like these..".He became a man possessed by the sheer power and volume of his own knowledge which until that time and in front of that bike..had remained untapped, contained..waiting for just such a moment..
"This is probably Henry Anglade's 1965 bike...because I remember an article in Sporting Cyclist in 1968, about Jan Janssen's bike, when he won the Tour,,riding a Sauvage-Lejeune..and there was a drawing by Rebour showing the top-eyes on the frame ..and they were stamped with "J.J" vertically..there's the proof."
And so it came to pass last Saturday that, having Googled and found "Pages Blanches" I discovered M Anglade'e telephone number where he lives, just north of Lyon in the Rhone valley, about thirty minutes from Macon...and "Yes!"
On Wednesday I hit the road again to points south..and France in the search of one of Rene Vietto's bikes that a friend bought from Apo Lazarides, Rene's team-mate..But this time it will mean a climb up into the Massif Central..past the centuries-old extinct volcanos, with the black cathedral of Clermont Ferrand crouching in the distance..very good provenance..and "R,Vietto" stamped on the frame, handlebar stem and bars themselves. And then there's the Motobecane of Jean-Luc Vandenbroucke to pick up and the Peugeot of Jacques Bossis..but thereby hangs another tale or two.
Norris Lockley...Settle UK... for the time-being at least.