L’Industrie du Cycle au Salon, a Declaration by Ph. Girardet — L’Officiel du cycle, 2 October 1954

From L’Officiel du cycle, du motocycle et du camping, 2 October 1954, the paper’s special number before the 1954 Paris Salon du Cycle et du Motocycle, page 165: a declaration by Ph. Girardet, president of the Chambre Syndicale Nationale du Cycle, on the cycle industry at the Salon: production, exports, cycle paths and the children’s road-test track, with his portrait. The title, headings, captions and lists are transcribed as printed; the text is summarized in Ebykr’s words, and the page images carry it in full.

— Page 1 —
L’INDUSTRIE
DU CYCLE
AU SALON

Une déclaration de
M. Ph. GIRARDET
Président de la Chambre
Syndicale Nationale
du Cycle

[Ebykr summary; the article’s text is not reproduced. Girardet opens by saying that bicycle production in 1953 held at a figure close to the pre-war level. The statistical surveys made by his Chambre syndicale found a production of 800.000. For the first half of 1954 the results gathered so far show a production equal to that of the first half of 1953. Exports in 1953 came to 122.922 bicycles, or 15 % of production, and the figure rises sharply in the first half of 1954, when it reaches 30 % of production with 121.086 bicycles. The exports went in particular to North America (the United States and Canada), several South American countries, the countries of the Orient (Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey) and the overseas territories of Black Africa. The French cycle industry is trying to expand its exports more and more, on foreign markets as well as colonial ones, and Girardet points out how paradoxical it is that import licenses in the colonies are deliberately granted for considerable quantities to foreign competition.]

[Ebykr summary, after the first star break. On the technical side the industry works to give its output the best quality possible, suited to the varied needs of its users, and it is effectively helped by the technical services and laboratories of the U.T.A.C. Girardet adds that the industry would also like the help of the Public Works administration in building a sufficient and suitable network of cycle paths. He asks whether it is necessary to repeat that the two flows of traffic, motor and cycle, must be kept apart, and says this serves motorists as much as the fifteen million cyclists who exist in France.]

[Ebykr summary, after the second star break. In connection with these traffic questions the Chambre syndicale nationale du Cycle has decided, together with the Prévention routière, to organize at the coming Salon a track for traffic tests on children’s bicycles. The track will stand in the Parc des Expositions at the Porte de Versailles, beside the cycle and motorcycle exhibition hall, with posts and arrows marking its place. The tests are for children from 6 to 12 years old, from the opening of the Salon on Thursday 7 October to the closing on Sunday 17 October, from 10 o’clock to noon and from 2:30 to 6 p.m., except Saturdays 9 and 16 October and Sunday 10 October. The children are quickly questioned on the highway code and then take a traffic examination on a bicycle.]

De nombreux prix seront attribués :
— aux élèves qui auront montré une bonne connaissance du Code de la route ;
— à ceux qui auront été sélectionnés pour leur comportement sur la piste d’épreuves.

[Ebykr summary, continuing the same section. A contest of decorated bicycles will also be held on Sunday 17 October, with children’s bicycles among the top prizes.]

[Ebykr summary, after the third star break. The organizing committee of the Salon has agreed that pupils accompanied by their teacher will be admitted free to the Salon du Cycle on presentation of a laissez-passer. Girardet closes by calling the event of very great interest, not only industrially, since activity in children’s bicycles keeps growing, but above all for the traffic problem that concerns everyone.]

165

[A full text page set in a single ruled panel, with one halftone photograph and no other drawings. The title “L’INDUSTRIE DU CYCLE AU SALON” stands at the upper right in three lines of very large, widely spaced, heavy italic roman capitals. Below it, centered, the line “Une déclaration de” is set in a large roman face, followed by “M. Ph. GIRARDET” in roman capitals and his title in three centered lines of the same roman face. Under that sits a halftone portrait photograph, square cornered with no frame, of a man seen from the chest up, turned slightly to the left, in a dark jacket and a dotted tie, with a white shirt, heavy dark horn-rimmed glasses and short pale hair; no caption is printed. The article text runs in a long column down the left of the panel in a lighter roman face, opening with an ornamental drop capital L, with further drop capitals S, A and L at the later sections, and the sections are divided by a small eight-pointed star ornament centered in the column. A dash list of two prize categories is set in the middle section. The printed page number 165 stands at the lower right outside the panel, and faint type from the reverse of the leaf shows through beside the photograph and at the foot. No signature or agency mark.]