IMHO the current constructeur discussion focussing on how many parts of a bike are in house made or if a frame maker has to weld the tubes from sheet metal himself to qualify as a constructeur is totally missing the point. Even if Richard Sachs would dig out the ore personally he'd still be a frame maker. A constructeur is more acting like the guy who has planned the PX-60 at Peugeot or the Clubman at Raleigh, only that a constructeur does this planning and building for each individual customer. This often included the necessity to create also custom parts like in the prototype department of a large firm but also the chance to make each individual frame up to the tiniest detail dependend of the exact specifications and parts which will be used. The drop out of a Singer can be dependent of the specific Huret derailleur variant and cog set later used, or think of the special braze ons for the clamp less mounting of a Jubilee front der. I doubt that most frame makers care during brazing if the customer will later use Shimano or Campagnolo parts or which saddle will be mounted. Of course it is hard to draw an exact line but the French used the term constructeur for small manufacturers who worked more or less only this way. You can argue that Ernesto Colnago was a constructeur when he built a complete bike for Eddy Merckx and that the Csukas were acting more like frame builders when delivering the (horrible) fenderless Singer frames to Spence Wolf but the vast majority of their bicycles were ordered, planned and built differently. That concept of the French constructeurs seems to be more fuzzy in the US might be caused by the american fashion to use pure race bikes also for touring. Pure race bikes simply don't give the same level of constructeur freedom like french randonneurs or campers. When ordering a constructeur bike, you can spent more time discussing the details and dimensions of a front rack (dependent of the Bag, lights, tires,... you intend to use of course) then other people when selecting a race frame.
Dirk
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Dirk Feeken
Heidelberg
Germany