TDF Bike question for the jerk, and the rest of you...

[e-RICHIE]

there was "quiz" leading to break on tonite's tdf coverage. the question involved the brand of winning bicycle and which one had the most tdf wins of the 5 names listed. there was pinarello, peugeot, trek, and 2 others i cannot recall. i was sure pinarello won the most tdf's of the 5 brands; 5 for indurain, then ullrich, riis, delgado as well. that's 8 right there. phil sai the correct answer was peugeot. i can't think of 8 or more tdf's atop that brand. can you? actually, besides thevenet, no rider comes to mind.

anyone know any hard facts?

e-RICHIE©™®

[parallelfish]

1905 Louis Trousselier
1906 Rene Pottier
1907 Lucien Prtit-Breton
1908 Lucien Prtit-Breton
1913 Philippe Thys
1914 Philippe Thys
1922 Firmin Lambot
1975 Bernard Thevenet
1977 Bernard Thevenet

[Ray]

there was "quiz" leading to break on tonite's tdf coverage. the question involved the brand of winning bicycle and which one had the most tdf wins of the 5 names listed. there was pinarello, peugeot, trek, and 2 others i cannot recall. i was sure pinarello won the most tdf's of the 5 brands; 5 for indurain, then ullrich, riis, delgado as well. that's 8 right there. phil sai the correct answer was peugeot. i can't think of 8 or more tdf's atop that brand. can you? actually, besides thevenet, no rider comes to mind.

anyone know any hard facts?

e-RICHIE©™®
I guessed the same as you. But I'll bet that a LOT of the tours in the first 30-50 years of the race were won by French riders on French bikes, of which Peugot were probably the most common. This is fully speculation and I too would love to see some hard data, but not enough to dig it up myself.

Edit - oh, there are some hard facts right there up one post. I was a little slow to get this speculation posted.

-Ray

[Kevan]

I haven't consumed a bag o' Twizzlers in months and I'm thinkin' the same way as e-RICHIE.

Somewhere in my bedside basket is a magazine I think which will help I.D. prior Peugeot winners.

Wait!!! Here it is...Pro Cycling Oct 2003, the article The Lion Sleeps Tonight. The article covers the end of the Peugeot bicycle business. Let's see... it mentions world champions using these bikes since 1896 and winners of the tour since 1905. Dropping names they mention: Eddy, Simpson, Bernard Thevenet, Rik Van Steenbergen and 100's more. Eddy says they handled like donkeys going down hill. The Peugeot jersey was designed around the black and white TV broadcast of races. Peugeot stayed with mostly French-made components, even where Campy provided better. All this in the name of cost. 1986 tour was the last for the Peugeot team. Apparently Festina rode these bikes for a while.

Here we are! The firm won the tour 10 times from 1903 to 1983. Sorry, no further detail.