Jo Routens Image Gallery

Jo Routens built randonneur bicycles in Grenoble, first in partnership as Hugonnier-Routens and then under his own name. This gallery gathers the period advertisements and magazine covers, the 1946 catalog photographs with the drawings made from them, workshop and street photographs and detail shots of several surviving bicycles.

Read in order, the printed pieces make one claim again and again: three consecutive Paris-Brest-Paris wins in 1948, 1951 and 1956, a first place in the randonneur category of the Poly Lyonnaise and a bicycle fitted with the best French components. The photographs show what that claim looked like on the bench.

The marque in print. Advertisements from Le Cycle and Le Cycliste, two Le Cycle covers of 1946 and 1947 and a photograph of the Routens workshop, with a Grenoble postcard, a 1935 notice for the Concours des Alpes and a street scene of the period for the setting.

Text advertisement headed CYCLES et TANDEMS Jo Routens, La marque victorieuse trois fois consécutives en 1948, 1951, 1956 at Paris-Brest-Paris, with a Grenoble address

Advertisement for Le Concours des Alpes organized by l'Auto, with a drawing of a bridge and a bell tower above the word GRENOBLE

Black and white advertisement headed Triomphe à la POLY du constructeur spécialiste Jo Routens, listing randonneur and constructor results and the components fitted

Advertisement headed PARIS-BREST-PARIS above Jo Routens, with Poly Lyonnaise team results and a list of fitted components in small type

Newspaper advertisement for the second Critérium Cyclotechnique, with a night scene of a cyclist in mountains beside the word VITUS and a list of Hugonnier-Routens team finishes

Advertisement showing a line drawing of a randonneuse with the headline La randonneuse J. Routens classée première and a list of fitted components in small type

Black and white photograph of two men talking in a workshop with tools on a pegboard behind them

The Hugonnier-Routens catalog of 1946. Photographs of the mixte, the randonneur, the sportif and the tandem, each paired with the pen drawing made from it. The same sheets are collected on their own page.

Black and white photograph of a woman's mixte bicycle with a rear rack and dress guard against a plain gray backdrop

Pen drawing of a mixte bicycle with a rear rack, chain guard and fenders

Pen drawing of a randonneur with a dark frame, drop handlebars, fenders and a derailleur

Pen drawing of a randonneur with a rear rack and drop handlebars

Bicycles on the bench. A black randonneur of the 1950s in close detail, a red randonneur and a red tandem photographed against a white wall and an olive bicycle loaded for touring.

Side view of a black randonneur with gold-wall tires, tan handlebar tape and silver mudguards against a white backdrop

Black bicycle frame and fork without wheels against a white backdrop

Close view of the head tube and fork of a black randonneur, with a brake caliper, a dynamo against the tire and tan handlebar tape

Close view of the top tube of a black frame with gold and black lettering reading Jo Routens beside a chrome mudguard

A 1967 randonneur in light blue. Detail photographs of the 1967 randonneur restored by Mariposa in 2017, from the Routens script on the down tube to the dynamo, the lamps and the frame pump. The full build sheet is in the Tech Specs entry.

Light blue randonneur with a leather handlebar bag, a chrome rack and cream tires on a stand against a worn blue wall — Period advertisements and covers, the 1946 Hugonnier-Routens catalog photographs paired with their drawings and close photographs of several surviving Jo Routens bicycles, tracing a Grenoble constructeur from the Poly Lyonnaise to the restored randonneur of 1967.

Read the full story in Jo Routens: Randonneur de l’Excellence, which covers his Brevet de Randonneur Alpin rides, the 1939 Grand Prix Duralumin win, the Hugonnier years and the constructeur bicycles.