Louis Caput - Retirement

Retirement

Caput stopped racing in 1957 and went into the real estate business in Vincennes, an eastern suburb of Paris. In 1966 he became directeur sportif of a new team, Kamomé-Dilecta, sponsored by a maker of Japanese washing machines and a French bicycle company that had last had a team in the 1930s. The team soon ran into trouble and riders were no longer paid. "We were paid à la musette, which means only if we won. Kamomé was in financial difficulties," said one of the riders, Raymond Lebreton.

The French businessman, Jean de Gribaldy, took over sponsorship the following year with Frimatic, another maker of washing machines, as main backer. Caput went with him to run the team but, said, Lebreton, his organisation was chaotic. "The de Gribaldy team was badly organised. We were told we were to ride raced only a few hours before they started. It was a bazaar, and I wanted to leave." Caput ran the team from 1968 to 1969. The following year Antonin Magne retired from running the Mercier team, which had lost BP as secondary sponsor. Fagor, a Spanish maker of refrigerators and other household goods, took over. An incidental effect of Caput's arrival as manager is that Raymond Poulidor and the other riders were allowed zips at the necks of their jerseys, something Magne had always thought unhealthy.