MERAL
Updated 6.22.2007
“MERAL was a small company of about fifteen staff working out workshops at La Fuye, just near Tours
in the Loire valley. The company had a full range of bikes for all types of cycle sport, and most were very elegant, well brazed and nicely finished. The company also had a custom shop. Although models were
produced in small series, the build was excellent and the price sensible, if you appreciate what I mean
…possibly FOLLIS quality..but slightly larger production.”
“Their foreman builder was Francis Quillon who, when MERAL was bought out in the early 1980s and some
worked moved nearer to Le Mans, stopped in La Fuye and set up his own frame shop. (He enjoyed) a
tremendous reputation especially with the racing fraternity. He is supposed to have built for Laurent Fignon, Cyrille Guimard, other of the Renault-Gitane teams of that era, Alain Prost. etc. He is now (considered) one of the gurus of modern French frame-building.”
“In a sense he was in the 80s and early 90s the “Bernard Carre” of his time. I bought a lot of his frames at the time he was the one of the chief builders – high end models – for Geliano/Jean Marie Duret.”