I was cleaning up my work space this morning and came upon this brochure. I think it's from the early 1960's or late 1950's, but I'm not sure. It's interesting to see the fender hardware that both Velo Orange and Honjo use was available so long ago. The same goes for the hammered and zeppelin fender textures. It's like that with so many of the parts we like and shows how far ahead those French guys were, and why we're inspired by so many of their designs. (As always, click on the images to enlarge.)
BTW, the scans we made are of copies of the original that Mel Pinto gave me years ago. You'd be amazed at the copies of old French catalogs lying around my office. Many are from Mel, one of the great men of the French and American bike business!
wow those combined rack/fenders are pretty awesome. have you thought about producing something like that?
ReplyDeleteWe'd love to make those rack/fenders, but the tooling costs would probably cause them to sell for $300. You can't just run those through rollers to make a pattern
ReplyDelete"It's like that with so many of the parts we like and shows how far ahead those French guys were"
ReplyDeleteOr what a bunch of nostalgic retro grouches WE are.
Great stuff - thanks for sharing. Love the matching chain guards. I wonder if those fenders were rolled first and then had a secondary stamp? Or did they just have a stamp mold that did it in one shot? Those are really neat, and you just might be able to sell them for $300 . . . just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate what you've done with fenders, and hope you continue what you are already doing, and continue to explore new ideas. I bought your 48cm/700c fenders as an "interim", while I waited for over a year for the Honjo Le Paon on backorder. I bought the Le Paon, finally, because I think they're my favorite overall. BUT, I like the VO 48s so much, I'm not going to change them out. I'm saving the Le Paon for a future bike.
Come on now, you know there's no such thing as _ahead_. It's hard and unpleasant to imagine the neon mountain bike returning as an object of admiration or desire, but I suspect it will happen none-the-less.
ReplyDeleteRetro grouch has become almost a toss-away term. We need an intensifier like grouchissimo, or I suppose as a paean to our gualish proclivities, grouchiste.
ReplyDeleteAbout those 80's neon mountain bikes returning as an "object of desire"...already yesterday's news, especially in Japan
ReplyDeletehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/bluelug/5004030328/lightbox/n:
I love those levers. Just a headsup, the letters CIE in this case are an abbreviation for "compagnie."
ReplyDeleteThe word Halfstep is looking for is
ReplyDelete"Grognard" French for old soldier/grumbler.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/grognard
Scott G. SPI,GDW etc.
Grognard! Love it. But can you believe it's already been co-opted by gamers?
ReplyDeleteHalfstep: "Retro grouch has become almost a toss-away term. We need an intensifier like grouchissimo, or I suppose as a paean to our gualish proclivities, grouchiste."
ReplyDelete+1 on grouchissimo! That's the funniest thing I've read in a LONG time...