The French Connection... Japanese style (French-a-sonic?)

zeringer

Dirt Disciple
Hi gang,

You know the story, you've just bought yet another bike you need about as much as another hole in the head. In this case the bike is a 1989 Custom Order Panasonic PICS frame with a full Dura Ace build. The odd part is that the name printed on the top tube is Philippe Lauraire. Now, I'm by no means a know-it-all when it comes to professional cyclists of the 1980's but that name just sounded so familiar to me. Ah ha! Turns out he rode with Stephen Roche on Team Fagor. That might be why the name looked familiar.

At any rate, I really have no idea if this bike was once in the hands of the French pro cyclist or if it just happened to belong to a guy with exactly the same name. Odd. Also odd is that the bike has more Panasonic decals than I've ever seen on any Panasonic model. Someone was sure proud of their flying alarm clock! ;-)

Does anyone happen to know of any potential ties of Mr. Lauraire to Panasonic? Just grasping for straws here trying to determine if it really was his and if so, how the heck did it wind up in southern California?

Here are a couple pics of the bike... will post more once it arrives and I get it cleaned up a bit.

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