I know the Ebay seller of this frame - ber- very well and obtained my fi rst Carre bike from him. His name is Bernard Bottemer and he lives in the l eafy suburb of Noisiel, just east of Paris..alongside La Francilienne outer ringroad. Its a charming place dominated by the subtle smell of expensive chocolate emanating from the Meunier factory.
A life-long cyclist..and still very active in his retirement - he is a comm issaire for the French Cycling Federation. More importantly, in this mat ter, he was a personal friend of Carre, and had met through the frame-build er, Jacques Anquetil, who used Carre to build his own personal frames.. It was from Bernard that I learned the bulk of my knowledge about Carre.
The current bike is clearly a frame built for a private client rather than for a trade customer, and it is only the second Carre frame that I have see n with the Carre head transfer.
The overlapping type of seat-stay cap has been used by quite a few builders , including the recently departed and much missed Norman Taylor. These buil ders chose that type of plate for a variety of personal reasons, one of whi ch is that it is a cap that can be silver-soldered into place on top of the seat-stay that has already been brazed on to the seat lug. If this process is carried out skillfully, there will be no need for filing the joint. On the majority of those top-eye plates fitted on to a hollow seat-stay, where the overlap is filed and polished fluch withn the contour of the seat-stay , the plate is brazed into place, and filed, before the seat-stay is join ed on to the seat lug.
In Carre's case, I think that he sought the overlap as a decorative feature - it certainly is on one of Carre's own personal frames that I own - but i n dear Norman's case it was just a case of expediency...to save filing-up t ime. He didn't think much of filing and finishing, he once told me. In Rale igh's case, I think there were searching for something distinctive. The cap s, although overlapping on this style of top-eye, do in fact vary consid erably in shape.
Norris Lockley from a very wet and cold Settle UK