gitane is a french manufacturer of bicycles based in machecoul france ; the name gitane means gypsy woman . the brand was synonymous with french bicycle racing from the 1960s through the mid 1980s sponsoring riders such as jacques anquetil 1963 1965 lucien van impe 1974 1976 bernard hinault 1975 1983 laurent fignon 1982 1988 and greg lemond 1981 1984 . it is owned by grimaldi industri ab . contents 1 history 2 sponsorships 3 palmar s 4 references 5 external links history edit gitane cycles have their roots in 1925 when marcel bruneli re opened a smith and agricultural repair works at machecoul in the loire atlantique region of france . he began making parts for bicycles and the following year opened a further workshop to assemble bicycles for g.m.b and marbru . bruneli re began making his own bicycles in 1930 choosing the name gitane meaning gypsy feminine . he added light motorcycles in the 1950s . the name changed to micmo in 1960 but continued to sell gitane bicycles . nearly a third of micmo was owned by renault the car maker which had acquired 30 per cent of the shares in 1974 . in 1976 it bought the rest . 1 gitane bicycles were first imported into the u.s. in 1958 by mel pinto imports of virginia and as such were among the first european racing bicycles to be regularly imported into that country . the arrival of a new director general at the head of renault in 1985 georges besse led the company to sell micmo to raise capital . micmo continued and then in 1992 joined peugeot and the spanish company bh to form the cycleurope group to compete with growing competition from asia . later bh sold gitane peugeot and the rest of cycleurope to the swedish monark conglomerate . sponsorships edit gitane sponsored its first professionals in 1948 . from 1953 to 1955 it equipped jean stablinski . in 1960 it helped back rapha gitane dunlop and rudi altig . in 1963 and 1964 gitane bicycles won the tour de france 2 ridden by jacques anquetil . renault sponsored a professional team in the 1970s and since it owned micmo the company behind gitane made gitane the co sponsor . riders on gitanes included lucien van impe bernard hinault laurent fignon and greg lemond all winners of the tour de france . gitane then sponsored the syst me u team led by laurent fignon rmo led by charly mottet and toshiba led by jean fran ois bernard . gitane sponsored mountain bike teams in the 1990s . gitane returned to road cycling after several years absence backing la fran aise des jeux and bigmat auber . for 2010 gitane sponsored the saur sojasun team with its new line of definitive gitane the one isp bicycles . gitane bicycles are available in europe only . the aluminum and steel gitanes are still built in the factories in machecoul the original gitane factory and the cycleurope facility at romilly sur seine the old peugeot factory in france while all carbon bikes are built in asia . palmar s edit tour de france 1963 1964 jacques anquetil 1976 lucien van impe 1978 1979 1981 1982 bernard hinault 1983 1984 laurent fignon world championship 1980 bernard hinault 1983 greg lemond 1958 elsy jacobs hour record roger rivi re elsy jacobs references edit risemberg richard september 2006 . gitane the dark eyed wanderer . ebykr . retrieved 2016 04 23 . http www.letour.fr 2007 tdf course docs hst stat fr.pdf external links edit gitane bicycles france gitane italy classic rendezvous gitane gitane origam e bike review at biciplegable.net gitane the dark eyed wanderer on ebykr v t e grimaldi industri cycleurope group bianchi crescent dbs gitane monark peugeot puch previously associated companies procycle group related articles peugeot cycling team v t e french bicycle manufacturers current peugeot cyfac gitane lapierre look louison bobet motob cane solex time v losolex vitus defunct alcyon cl ment corima follis gladiator gnome et rh ne ren herse hurtu matra manufrance mochet olivier brothers stella terrot urago velocar components cl ment tyres hutchinson sa look mafac mavic michelin simplex retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title gitane & oldid 716782019 categories loire atlantiquecycle manufacturers of france navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschfran aisnederlandssvenska edit links this page was last modified on 23 april 2016 at 20 55 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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