1986 La Vie Claire team bike

Walter

Dirt Disciple
I am thinking of repainting a vintage TVT frame in the '86 La Vie Claire team colors. Do any of you have some good photos of the '86 TdF team bikes, particularly the TVT/Look carbon ones so I can see the paint layout, colors, and the stickers/decals?

Thanks...

Walter
wbnash (at) msn.com
 
i think 86 would have been a steel frame ,mostly in a silver colour.i think if you google lemond ,hinault or even steve bauer you should come up with a good image. it would be nice to see a picture of the bike
 
They did use steel frames for some of the stages, but some riders used cf ones in the mtns. Some of the somewhat fuzzy pictures from '86 show some of the bikes with black frame tubes to shiny lugs. I think that the all silver/gray paint was on the steel frames.

Thanks for the help.
 
i googled steve bauer, and found a picture of a very young andy hampsten in there colours. la vie claire was a super talented squad when you look down the list of riders
 
Walter":7a1q7eyw said:
They did use steel frames for some of the stages, but some riders used cf ones in the mtns. Some of the somewhat fuzzy pictures from '86 show some of the bikes with black frame tubes to shiny lugs. I think that the all silver/gray paint was on the steel frames.

Thanks for the help.

matthew71: The more I study the '86 bike photos, I believe the cf bikes are indeed silver albeit with a different panel painting than the steel ones. '87 was when they went to the clear coat over the cf weave.
 
hi walter,

if you pm me your email address i'll send you loads of photos of those bikes -it's kind of like my specialist subject!

the la vie claire team used white and chrome reynolds 753R frames with coloured flashes to represent the mondrian team jersey colour scheme. the tvt frames were used in the mountains and were silver in colour with the alloy lugs/ bb shell and dropouts masked off and left their natural alloy finish. the decals are currently available on ebay - search under "hinault" and you'll find them - an australian guy reprints them and very good repros by all accounts.

glad to know i'm not the only one out there who loves the 86 tour de france and in particular the la vie claire team of that era!!

craig
 
rusty bodie":1n4s81d8 said:
hi walter,

if you pm me your email address i'll send you loads of photos of those bikes -it's kind of like my specialist subject!

the la vie claire team used white and chrome reynolds 753R frames with coloured flashes to represent the mondrian team jersey colour scheme. the tvt frames were used in the mountains and were silver in colour with the alloy lugs/ bb shell and dropouts masked off and left their natural alloy finish. the decals are currently available on ebay - search under "hinault" and you'll find them - an australian guy reprints them and very good repros by all accounts.

glad to know i'm not the only one out there who loves the 86 tour de france and in particular the la vie claire team of that era!!

craig


come on craig. bernard or greg? the arrogant french ruler of the peleton or the brash american upstart ?
 
rusty bodie":11o4o7a8 said:
hi walter,

if you pm me your email address i'll send you loads of photos of those bikes -it's kind of like my specialist subject!

the la vie claire team used white and chrome reynolds 753R frames with coloured flashes to represent the mondrian team jersey colour scheme. the tvt frames were used in the mountains and were silver in colour with the alloy lugs/ bb shell and dropouts masked off and left their natural alloy finish. the decals are currently available on ebay - search under "hinault" and you'll find them - an australian guy reprints them and very good repros by all accounts.

glad to know i'm not the only one out there who loves the 86 tour de france and in particular the la vie claire team of that era!!

craig

My PM's do not appear to be going out: wbnash (at) msn.com is the personal email address.
 
bernard or greg - the eternal tdf question!! i'm not going to sit on the fence here as hinault has always been my favourite bike rider. i'm too young (!) to know about the previous cycling heroes like merckx et al, but for me in my time then hinault was the ultimate cycling animal. he was utterly ruthless in all aspects of the sport and gave no room to anyone.

seeing greg come along when he did and really give hinault a run for his french francs was quite something to behold. fignon in his time too was totally on form and he clobbered a less than peak performing hinault. still hinault would ride practically every race in the calendar to win it, regardless of who he was up against. he simply loved to beat people and to win, no matter what or who. and of course he could do it with unbeatable style and panache.

there were a load of terrific riders in the 80s but in his era hinault was undeniably the boss. he didn't just single out the tour de france as later winners did - he hammered all and sundry whatever race he entered. there are few cyclists so utterly compelling to watch in action - physically he was like an animal on the bike, furious faced, gnashing his teeth and with monstrous legs like two sculpted pistons - he was a terrifying sight for his fellow competitors.
i remember stephen roche saying that when he first encountered the badger in his early career, he was totally hammered trying to keep up with him and especially so as hinault made a point of out-psyching the irish neo-pro by riding the whole race in his biggest gear - again, just because he COULD!

i've always admired hinault for retiring when he did - he always said he would retire at 32 and did so in style. you could have a go at him for not "gifting" the 86 tour to lemond and instead making him ride to the very end, but then lemond hung far too many wheels to ever look like he truly deserved to win that tour. this sadly, was to be a characteristic of lemond's racing style - a great tactician and someone who could really blast the peloton to pieces in the mountains and time trials but it was usually by the cattle prod of a close contender and rarely his own decision.

both hinault and lemond were marketing icons of the time. they both possessed good looks, style, strength and charisma - everything that a sponsor looks for in a marketing. these two riders made the 80s absolutely magical for the rest of us mere mortals to watch from the safety and comfort of our armchairs. i've only got two posters up on the wall in my humble abode and hinault and lemond feature in both. tremendous champions and very different people. hinault will always be my favourite rider but then lemond's presence perhaps made hinault look even better than he already did. lemond had the nerve, talent and advantage of youth to draw the rage of the badger.

lucky us.

craig



:twisted:
 
i was lucky enought to see lemond race just after he won his 3rd tour in a post tour cicuit race . it was a pleasure to see him ride in full z colours, in a beautifully hot afternoon in france.hinault was just retierd when i started to get into cycling so i never had the chance to see him
i always wonder what would have happened with lemond if he had avoided his hunting accident. i think he would have been in the same leauge as merckx,anquetil and indurain, but we shall never know.and he may even leave a bigger mark on the sport than his tour wins. i borrowed the following picture, but i never seem to grow board of looking at it. probably as iconic as coppi -bartoli passing the bottle
 

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