Originally Posted by
joe englert
speaking of that, since gitane was a cigarette company and not anyones name, i wonder who built all of those winning frames starting with anquitel and ending with lemond? i guess that it was dozens of different french frame builders such as pepe limongi. the ones i have seen for sale that arent team bikes such as the tour de france models all seem very poorly made. i think the gitane bikes make for public buying were all poorly made.
Geez, Joe, where do you get this stuff. "Gitane" means "Gypsy" in French, and the cigarette company and bicycle company are not the same. In 1960 the bicycle company changed its name to Micmo, but continued to produce Gitane bicycles (among other brands). Many (possibly all) of Anquetil's Gitane race frames were built by Paris builder Bernard Carre, who built for a lot of pros. There were some very nicely made Gitane frames, but they tend to be from an earlier period, when few made it into the US, and from later, after LeMond rode to prominence. Gitane's reputation in the US unfortunately rests on it's bike-boom era US imports. (I happen to own a Gitane from the 60's that is not top-tier but nonetheless pretty cool, in it's own way, and decently made.)
Incidentally, Anquetil rode "Gitane" bikes to only two of his five Tour victories, and for three seasons in total.