I'm pretty sure Bill Davidson used WC stripes (late '70s to early '80s) just because he liked the look, not because they were earned. I suppose it's possible there was a legit WC win on a Davidson that I never heard about, but it seems unlikely considering I worked there for 10 years ('84 to '94). It would've come up, right? Probably the closest Davidson got was when Renee Duprel won silver in the World Championship Match Sprint, 1990. <brag> I built that frame myself. </brag> Graham Watson shot an awesome photo of the deciding heat where Renee missed WC gold by millimeters. In the photo, just after the actual photo-finish, their rear tires are near the finish line, with Renee's two or three inches ahead of Connie Paraskevin's, showing that Renee was going way faster at the end. She just timed it slightly wrong. About as close to being World Champion as a person can be.

Her boyfriend (later husband) Ken Carpenter also rode a Davidson I built. He was on 2 Olympic teams and won Nationals 5 times but was never in contention for a WC. A few Davidson riders won the Masters World Cup, sort of the World Championships of age-graded masters racing, but that doesn't legally qualify you for WC rainbow stripes.

Mark Pringle got 10th in the amateur senior men's road race championship in '77, which is still the answer to the trivia question "what's the best-ever placing by an American in the Amateur Senior Men's World Championship Road Race?" Americans have won the Professional, the Junior, the Women's, and several other disciplines other than Road at Worlds, plus also Olympic gold, but not that complete combo of Pringle's achievement. Lance Armstrong came close, his last year as an amateur, getting 11th. Pringle's record is safe (for all time?), since there no longer is a senior men's amateur world championship — they retired that title. I have a picture of Pringle on his Davidson in the Red Zinger, and it appears the bike has those same decals as above, only with the WC stripes snipped off. I guess by then they must have clued into the fact that the stripes weren't legal for UCI racing. I have heard of riders having to cover illegal stripes with duct tape or some such, but I can't quote any actual examples, might be an urban legend

In later years (after about 1984 I think), Davidson decals ditched the illegal stripes. I doubt there was any "cease and desist" letter from UCI, they just wanted to simplify the design, or avoid duct tape for UCI races. Or maybe they got tired of explaining that the stripes weren't earned, they were just "décor". The new simpler decals came out right about the time I started there, so I wasn't privy to any discussions of the reasons.

Mark B