Racing
Gitane has arguably the greatest race history of any bicycle
manufacturer. The brand has been ridden to wins in every
major tour, including 11 wins in the Tour de France, numerous
world and speed titles, and nearly every other major bicycle
race. No other bicycle manufacturer can compare with Gitane’s
legendary palmares.
Gitane became synonymous with winning
bicycle races in the early 1960's, when Jacques Anquetil
rode Gitanes to victory
major bicycle races throughout Europe. Most notably, he
won the Tour de France three times aboard a Gitane (the other
two were on Heylett bicycles). His team during that era
was
the classic St. Raphael squad, whose jersey was one of
the most beautiful cycling jerseys ever made and has become
an
widely sought after collectors item.
While Anquetil was
dominating events like the Tour, other Gitane riders were
dominating in other cycling arenas.
Rolf Wolfshohl won back to back World Cyclocross Championships
on his Gitane in 1960 and 1961. Jean Stablinski became
World
Road Race Champion in 1962 riding his French “racing
blue” Gitane.
After Anquetil left the cycling scene,
Gitane was not as active in professional cycling, although
it did maintain
a team and a presence in the peleton. This all changed
after the “bike boom” in the early 1970's,
where rising gasoline prices world-wide helped fuel huge
increase in bicycle
sales.
As
Gitane’s sales skyrocketed, so did their
investment in professional bicycle racing. Gitane hired
an brilliant
and aggressive director sportif, Cyrille Guimard, who
had a great eye for talent, and Belgian journeyman/climber
Lucien
Van Impe to lead its team in the 1976 Tour de France,
which it won. However, Van Impe did not figure in the
long term
plans of the team (and reportedly did not get along
with Guimard). Instead, it was a young Bernard Hinault that
the team looked to as the rider of the future.
Gitane’s
increased sales led to its purchase by the Renault
auto group, which included the Elf oil company. Renault
spent more money on bicycle racing than had ever
been spent
before and created the first modern “super
team” in
1977: Renault-Elf. Renault-Elf, under the capable
leadership of Cyrille Guimard, began assembling a
team of the
best young riders in the world. At the time, most
were French, but Guimard
would not let continental prejudices limit his vision
of an all-powerful team.
Along with the French riders,
Guimard did the unheard of: He went to the USA
to hire bicycle riders. The
first, Jonathan
Boyer, led the way as the first cyclist from the
USA to ride in the Tour de France (his subsequent
history,
though,
makes
it difficult even to include his name on this site...but
he did what he did at the time). The biggest catch
however, was signing a young Greg LeMond. Both
Guimard and Hinault
traveled to Nevada to personally sign LeMond to
his first European pro contract, a move which would reshape
cycling
forever, leading to LeMond’s Tour de France
victories, which paved the way and provided inspiration
for riders such
as Lance Armstrong.
At the time, though, Hinault
was the man. His ferocity on the bicycle was
matched only by Eddy Merckx:
Hinault won
everything. Classics, the Tour, time trials,
bunch sprints, climbs...even on the track...you name
it, Hinault was
winning it. He won four of his five Tour de France’s
aboard a blue Gitane. He won the World Road Race
Championship on
a Gitane, along with the Giro d’Italia
and Vuelta a’Espana.
1983 was a great year
for Renault-Elf and Gitane. It started with a
win in the Vuelta a’Espana for Bernard
Hinault and ended with Gitane’s second
World Road Race World Championship in three years
when Greg LeMond crossed the
finish line first astride his blue and yellow
bike.
After Hinault’s Vuelta win in 1983, an
injury sidelined him for the Tour de France,
which allowed another Renault-Elf
rider to rise to prominence: Laurent Fignon.
Fignon’s
natural talent and skill on the bike was legendary.
Although unknown at the time, he was destined
win the Tour in 1983
and repeat in 1984 with one of the most dominating
races in history.
The 1984 Tour de France marks
a high point in
Gitane racing and set the mark (which has yet
to be broken)
for any team
in the history of the Tour. While Lance Armstrong’s
USPS/Discovery Channel team controlled races
during his seven victories, no team ever dominated
the Tour de France like
Renault-Elf did on their Gitane’s in 1984.
Renault-Elf
stormed to 8 stage wins (out of 23), including
the team time trial. Fignon himself
won 5 stages. A
Renault-Elf rider wore the Yellow Jersey for
19 of the 23 stages
(Vincent Barteau wore it from stage 5-16, and
Fignon from 17-23).
Fignon took the final Yellow Jersey as the first
placed rider, LeMond took the White Jersey (best
young rider)
and 3rd place
overall, and the Renault-Elf won the teams competition.
No other team in the history of the Tour de France
comes close
to that type of domination.
All good things, though,
must pass. First, I cannot go without mentioning the fact
that Fignon
would
have won
the 1984 Giro
d’Italia had it not been for the treachery
of Italian racing officials and blatant cheating
by Francesco Moser,
who robbed Gitane of another major tour win.
After the 1984 year, things changed, beginning
a steady but rapid decline
for Gitane and its racing teams.
Hinault had
left Gitane after it was clear that Fignon
would be the number one rider after
the
1983 Tour
de France. Besides,
he was offered a pile of money by France’s
then famous, now infamous, “it” businessman
Bernard Tapie. Tapie had formed a new bicycle
team, named for one of his
health food product brands, La Vie Claire.
After the 1984 Tour, Tapie and Hinault approached
Greg LeMond and offered
him the first million dollar contract to leave
Renault and join Hinault at La Vie Claire.
Of course, he accepted, and
changed the salary structure forever in bicycle
racing.
More importantly, Gitane was being sold
off by the Renault Group. Sagging sales, both
for
cars
and bikes
along with
a recession in France led to a consolidation
which would not support professional bike teams
like
before. Guimard’s
Gitane riders sought new sponsorship, and found
it in French convenience store (or supermarket,
by their standards) “Systeme
U”.
Systeme U had been a sponsor of bicycle racing
for some years, but its teams were mostly second
rate
professionals. Now,
it had a world-class organization: Team leader
Laurent Fignon was backed by super-domestique’s
Marc Madiot and Charly Mottet and prologue
specialist Thierry Marie. With this group,
Systeme U hoped to dominate the Tour de France.
However, things started going wrong almost
immediately.
While the team performed well
and scored important
victories, Fignon never regained his form of
1983/84 and was plagued
by injuries. 1985 was highlighted by Marc Madiot’s
win in the Paris-Roubaix. In 1986, they did
win the prologue of the Tour (Marie) and the
team time trial impressively,
but Fignon ended up dropping out of the Tour.
The one bright point of 1986 was Fignon’s
win in the Fleche-Wallone, but the team really
never lived up to its billing.
1988, the last year of Systeme U, saw Fignon
score one of his more impressive wins in Milan-San
Remo,
but again
underperformed
at the Tour de France. It would be the last
year of Gitane’s
involvement with Guimard and Fignon, as for
the 1989 season, Systeme U became “Super
U” and switched to Raleigh
bicycles - with disastrous 8-second consequences!
They should have stayed with Gitane!
The second
(and last) golden era of Gitane
bicycle racing was at an end. It had lasted
a little
over a decade (1976-1988),
during which time Gitane racked up the following
impressive stats: Tour de France (7), World
Championships (2),
Giro d’Italia (2), Vuelta a’Espana
(1), Paris-Roubaix (2), Milan-San Remo (1),
Fleche-Wallone (3), Liege-Bastogne-Liege
(1), and many more classics.
There is no other
team which can compare to this decade of Gitane
domination.
Life after Renault/Systeme U was significantly
less glamorous for Gitane. First, it did a
year of sponsorship
for Charly
Mottet’s RMO squad (1992). While Mottet
was one of the classiest riders in the pro
peleton and had a great career,
he was not that successful with RMO, and Gitane’s
involvement with the team was short lived.
In
the mid-1990's, Marc Madiot started a team
sponsored by the French national lottery: Francaise
des Jeux.
Because of his contacts with Gitane and Gitane’s
interest in sponsoring French teams and French
riders (by this time,
Gitane’s ambition as a bicycle company
was purely regional), Francaise des Jeux was
riding Gitane bikes, playfully painted
with lotto-ball numbers on the frames, with
a touch of French racing blue to highlight
the frames.
With Francaise des Jeux, Gitane
was once again visible in the pro peleton -
but sadly not
in the front of
it. And when
the team decided to up the ante and step up
to the big time around the year 2000, Gitane
dropped
its
sponsorship, presumably
because of monetary concerns. It was about
this same time that Gitane was purchased by
Cycleurope,
which
had
Bianchi
in mind for its “racing” brand.
Gitane then sponsored the ill-fated Big-Mat/Auber
93 squad, which struggled for
a few years until 2003, when it was not offered
a ride in the Tour de France, and the sponsor
(a hardware supply store
similar to Home Depot) decided that its meager
investment was too much, and pulled the plug
on Big Mat. The Tour de
France had become the only marketing tool worth
anything to big corporations, and without a
ride in the biggest race,
corporations just won’t foot the bill.
So
since 2003, one of the greatest names in bicycle
racing has been allowed by Cycleurope
to be completely
absent
from the pro peleton. Sadly, for the year 2005,
they even stopped
producing high-end racing frames for the line,
which has forced loyal Gitane racing fans to
search elsewhere
for
bicycles. It is this author’s hope that
Cycleurope reconsider its decision and make
Gitane a force once again in bicycle
racing.
Below is a list of some of the major
accomplishments aboard this classic French
bicycle
(the list
is not complete!).
1957 - Jacques Anquetil,
Tour de France
1960 - Rudi Altig, World Champion (Amateur
Pursuit)
- Rolf Wolfshohl, World Champion (Cyclocross)
1961 - Jacques Anquetil, Tour de France
- Rolf Wolfshohl, World Champion (Cyclocross)
1962 - Jean Stablinski, World Champion
1963 - Jacques Anquetil, Tour de France, Vuelta
a Espana, Dauphine Libere, Paris-Nice
1964 - Jacques Anquetil, Tour de France
1965 - Jacques Anquetil, Paris-Nice
1973 - Enzo Mattioda, Bordeaux-Paris
1976 - Lucien Van Impe, Tour de France
1977 - Bernard Hinault, Liege-Bastogne-Liege,
Ghent-Whevelgem, Dauphine Libere, Grand Prix
des Nations
1978 - Bernard Hinault, Tour de France
1979 - Bernard Hinault, Tour de France
1980 - Bernard Hinault, Giro d’Italia, World Champion,
Liege-Bastogne-Liege
1981 - Bernard Hinault, Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix,
Dauphine Libere
1982 - Bernard Hinault, Tour de France, Giro
d’Italia,
Grand Prix des Nations
1983 - Laurent Fignon, Tour de France- Bernard
Hinault, Vuelta a Espana- Greg LeMond, World
Champion
1984 - Laurent Fignon, Tour de France
Gitane Sponsored
Teams
1947 - Gitane (individual)
1948 - Gitane/Stella
1949 - Gitane/Hutchinson
1950 - Gitane/Hutchinson
1951 - Gitane/Hutchinson
1952 - Gitane/Hutchinson
1953 – Gitane/Hutchinson
1954 – Gitane/Hutchinson
1955 – Gitane
1960 - Rapha/Gitane
1961 - Rapha/Gitane
1962 - Gitane/Leroux/Dunlop
1963 – Saint-Raphaël/Gitane/Campagnolo
1964 – Saint-Raphaël/Gitane/Dunlop
1965 – Ford/France/Gitane
1966 – Ford/France/Hutchinson
1967 - Bieres '33'/Gitane
1969 - Gitane/Pampril
1972 - Gitane
1973 - Gitane/Frigecreme
1974 - Sonolor/Gitane
1975 – Gitane/Campagnolo
1976 – Gitane/Campagnolo
1977 – Gitane/Campagnolo
1978 – Renault/Gitane
1979 – Renault/Gitane
1980 – Renault/Gitane/Campagnolo
1981 – Renault/Gitane/Campagnolo
1982 – Renault/Gitane
1983 – Renault-Elf/Gitane
1983 - Eurotex/Mavic
1984 – Renault-Elf
1985 – Renault
1986 – Systeme U/Gitane
1987 – Systeme U
1988 – Systeme U
1989 – Toshiba/Karcher
1990 – Histor/Sigma
1992 – RMO/Gitane/Mavic
1994 – V.C. Lyon/Castorama/Cramer/Mavic
1997 – La Francaise des Jeux
1998 – La Francaise des Jeux
1999 – La Francaise des Jeux
2000 – La Francaise des Jeux
2001 – La Francaise des Jeux
2002 – BigMat-Auber 93
2003 – BigMat-Auber 93
2010 - Saur-Sojasun
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