The best known secret in cycling? Well quite 
possibly. I would imagine that not many of you have heard of Cyfac before, but most will probably have seen their bikes in action even if you did not realise……….still confused?
Nestled away in France’s Loire Valley, Francis Quillon founded Cyfac after he started building bikes in 1982 for various shops with their own branding attached to his creations. In 1987 Francis was asked by the professional team Super U to produce their frames for its riders. Famous competitors such as Cyril Guimard, Laurent Fignon, Charly Mottet and Marc Madiot all rode Cyfac frames to victory. Little known of course, as the frames had Raleigh stickers on them to mask the true source of their origin.
Over 20 years later Cyfac have made frames for teams like Ti-Raleigh, Super-U, Castorama, Festina and Cofidis with no recognition being passed down to the creator. With countless stage victories in the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a Espana and the Paris-Roubaix to name just a few, Cyfac supplied nearly a third of the European peloton by 2002 either re-badged or under their own name according to Aymeric Le Brun, current co-owner of Cyfac.
Technologically advanced and dependable, each frame is built to withstand the demands of hard grit European racing and training. Across the rugged pavé of northern France the sinuous descents of the Italian coast and the fierce crosswinds of the Spanish plain, every Cyfac is built with the rider in mind and no compromise made for delivering the ultimate bicycle for what ever the user has in store for it.
At the forefront of many innovations, Cyfac was:
•the first frame builder to TIG-weld aluminium.
•the first builder to provide lightweight alloy frames to Tour riders.
•the first European frame builder to make custom TI frames.
•the world’s only builder of the custom monocoque alloy super bike frame (banned by the UCI 6 month’s later for its aero advantage).
•the builder of the first fully-custom carbon frameset (completely lug-less).
These are just a few of the reasons why we have teamed up in 2010 with Cyfac and chosen them to make the frames for our PBK team. We are proud to have a company with such a pedigree making our team frames for this season and are looking forward to a year ahead full of great success.
Below are two videos where you get to see the creation of a Cyfac frame, from the carbon process to the painting. The masking procedure they go under is quite amazing, such meticulous attention to detail! If the music is not quite to your taste you can mute it as there is no commentary in the videos, just a few session musicians doing what they do best, mmmmmmmmmm nice!
