[CR]RE: B. Carre French 1979 track frame on eBay

(Example: History:Norris Lockley)

Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 16:48:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Fred Rednor" <fred_rednor@yahoo.com>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: [CR]RE: B. Carre French 1979 track frame on eBay

--- Chuck Schmidt <chuckschmidt@earthlink.net> wrote: > > 1979 B. Carre French track frame > eBaty item number: 170126187402 > "CARRE, one of the most famous frame builders of the > Paris area, who worked for the great champions..." > Pretty disappointing in the details I'd say! Yikes?!

Chuck, Extrapolating from Norris Lockley's comments, Bernard Carré was a confirmed 2 bottle a day man (of wine - not beer) by 1979. In fact, if you were to see my '74 LeJeune track bike, you'd think he started on that road a bit earlier. Still, despite the rudimentary work on the fork ends, this bike is really clean elsewhere. In fact, my experience with examining bikes by Monsieur Carré is that they're an amalgam of both beautiful and crude details. I'm refering to construction details here, rather than head badges. Apparently he liked it that way. (Are you familar with the "Gallic shrug"? You need to purse your lips and do that now...) In the current era, it's hard to imagine that a builder "to the stars" could have done things that way. In fact, it's hard to believe, considering how beautiful Italian bike were during that period - even cheap ones. But that's the way it was, and his bikes were successful under the right riders. Amitiés, Fred Rednor - Arlignton, Virginia (USA)

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