>I'll start with 1955, since it is the easiest. The cover of "Vous Fait
>Revivre: Le Tour (1955) has a nice image of Bobet and Gaul. It is probably
>"colorized", but they were pretty good at getting the correct colors in the
>right places (fans were probably just as picky then as they are today).
>Bobet's bike is yellow with blue seattube panel, and World Champion stripes
>in several places.
>
>Another image (b&w) shows a three-quarter shot from the drive side. Note
>his mechanic is still mounting the rear qr lever on the drive side. Not a
>perfect print, but I'll leave it large for details - you can even make-out
>the lacing pattern on his shoe!. Note the head lugs and fork crown details.
>Someone will have to remind me who built Bobet's personal bikes.
Of course, Bobet's bike wasn't made by Mercier - hardly any pros back then rode "production" frames. Toward the end of his career, Bobet had his frames made by Rene Herse. The bike in the photos _might_ be one of them. The fork crown and the rake of the fork, as well as the dropout finish, are exactly like Herse would have done them. The lugs look a bit like some early Herse bikes from the mid-1940s... but many other builders used similar styles. Still, my money is on Herse as the builder of the 1955 machine. (By that, I don't mean Herse personally, but his shop.)
Many a French cyclist on a mass-produced Mercier didn't know that their bike had little in common with the champion's machine, except (perhaps) the tubeset.
Jan Heine
Editor
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