Boston-Mavic team, the launch of ‘le tout mavic’ in the peloton

1980 Team Boston – IFI – Mavic

In 1980 Mavic gently launched ‘le tout Mavic’ in the professional cycling peloton. The Belgian Boston-IFI-Mavic squad was sponsored by Boston, an American refrigeration company that hoped to use professional cycling to set foot in the European white goods market.

The team had a small budget. Nevertheless, the team got noticed with a mix of rookies like Jan Nevens and experienced riders approaching the end of their professional career.

Mavic components definitely got attention of other teams and riders, turning the Boston – IFI – Mavic team the perfect launch path for ‘le tout Mavic’.

1981 Boston – Mavic

1981 Is the year that the Belgian Lucien Van Impe put ‘le tout Mavic’ on the map.

After a year without winning a major race, Van Impe became ‘le patron’ of the 1981 Boston-Mavic team.

The 68th edition of Le Tour de France presented 4 former winners of the yellow Jersey: Joop Zoetemelk, Bernard Hinault, Bernard Thévenet and Lucien Van Impe himself.

Van Impe took the victory in the 5th and only stage in the Pyrenees. Hinault turned out to be the strongest overall, especially in the prologue and the 3 individual time trials. Van Impe took 2nd place in the GC 15 minutes behind the ‘badger’.

The Belgian won the polkadot Jersey being ‘le meilleur grimpeur’ overall and demonstrated what @maviccycling components were capable off.

The bikes

Boston obviously was not a bicycle brand so the team ordered the bikes from whoever would supply them at the best price and have them painted white with Boston stickers on top of the varnish. Therefore, a few different models are around. The version below is very common (we have 4 of them in our collection) with chromed rear ends and forks. It was most likely produced by Barale in Italy using Super Vitus tubing and Campagnolo dropouts. In 1980 the team mechanics would often drill the seat tube to fit a 27,2 mm seat post and add Columbus stickers to make it look like a genuine Columbus frames as this was considered ‘the standard’ for high end Italian bikes at that time.

In 1981 some riders riders even ordered their own bicycle frames from Martelly, CBT Italia (one in our collection) or would use a rebadged Merckx or DeRosa (1 with a Belgian collector) bike from their old team.

Mavic™ is a registered trademark, all rights reserved / illustrations © by @stefanvanouytsel