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Andre SABLIERE
Earlier: Jons, Lyon
Later: Rue du Soleil, St Etienne
Updated 8.15.2014 Click on
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"Andre was/is a very engaging person and most of his
customers would forgive him a lot of his faults
i.e., broken promises and undertakings, when they
finally received one of his aluminium gems of a
frame. Having said that, I am still awaiting
delivery of the two Sabliere 2nd generation carbon-fibre-tubed/aluminium
lugged frames that I ordered at the 1983 Paris Show
for a couple of riders who were in the UK Womens
Team for the 1984 Olympics."
"From mid - 1970s until about 1983/84 Andre was going through the
process of discovering himself - a journey that he
was to restart several times in his cycle-frame
building career, the penultimate time being in the
early 90s when, completely out of the blue he phoned
me to ask if I would place an advance order for some
of the new generation of Jacques Anquetil frames
that he was planning on producing... with more than
a little financial help from Sophie, Anquetil
Jacques' daughter. I enquired, before committing
myself, if the lead time would be longer or shorter
than that for the delivery of the Carbon/aluminium
Sablieres. I did actually place an order but...,they
never arrived... Not having paid anything up-front I
knew that my money committed to the purchase would
remain unspent."
"In the mid 70s Andre was still producing both lugless and lugged
steel frames and starting to experiment with welded
aluminium ones. By the time that these were ready
for showing off to the Press and the public at
large, they were beautifully crafted and presented;
he was one of the darlings of the French trade
magazine 'L'Officiel du Cycle' who regularly devoted
many metres of column centimetres to accounts of his
latest development. Often this was the same frame as
the previous article, but dressed in different
equipment, much of it quite unashamedly branded 'SABLIERE'."
"The better known Sabliere frames, from about 1982 onwards are
finely-finished sculptured objects of considerable
beauty... and a substantial amount of skill. By that
time all cables were passing through the tubes or
chainstay... or seat stay and he had discarded the
welded alloy fork for one whose blades were bonded
to a forged aluminium crown, the drop-outs also
being bonded into place. The rear drop-outs were not
welded into place but were a riveted and bonded
combination. The other major change in the frame's
construction was that Sabliere had got rid of the
welded on seat bolt boss in favour of a seat-pillar
with an integral expander bolt."
"Sabliere's frames do not have a reputation for breaking... but
they may appear slightly 'soft' compared to
modern-day aluminum alloy ones... although he
argon-arced the frames...not just gas-welded them.
I
cannot at the moment recall the type/series of aluminium alloy that he used but believe that it
came from Pechiney-Cedegur..but it wasn't one of the
newer and sophisticated 6000 series or even 7000. I
will endeavour to find out from a friend in Lyon who
knows Andre well. Rumour has it that Sabliere is
back in business, but I find that hard to believe as
he must be in his mid-to-late-60s..but, maybe just
as Andre carried on the tradition of frame-building
started by his father Chas, then, possibly Andre's
son, might have also taken to the torch and TIG-welder....he
will be in his early-to-mid 30s now."
Norris Lockley
6/21/2011 on CR Group |
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