{"id":577749,"date":"2026-04-02T16:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/577749\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T16:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:47:09","slug":"how-canadian-cycling-magazine-helped-to-reunite-legendary-cyclist-gord-fraser-with-his-old-bike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/577749\/","title":{"rendered":"How Canadian Cycling Magazine helped to reunite legendary cyclist Gord Fraser with his old bike"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gord Fraser regretted letting his old bike go. Back in 1986, the young road racer got a Bertrand, a bike made in Hull, Que., (now Gatineau), which was across the Ottawa River from his home. The pattern for Fraser in those years was to sell his bikes to upgrade for the upcoming seasons.<\/p>\n

After the successful rider retired in the mid-2000s\u2014having notched numerous wins in the North American circuit as well as abroad\u2014he began collecting vintage bikes. He acquired a made-in-Italy Gardin<\/a>, a Bianchi X-3<\/a> and a Marinoni<\/a>, to list a few. In 2023, he got a Bertrand<\/a>. Not his old Bertrand, but one that was a bit small, and a bit less yellow than the one from his youth.<\/p>\n

In 2025, shortly after Fraser wrote about his new old Bertrand for this magazine, I got an email. It was from a reader named Sean Pemberton. He had Fraser\u2019s bike.<\/p>\n

Below, in Fraser\u2019s own words, is what happened next. (Also find out why he didn\u2019t remember selling the bike to Pemberton.) The passage is from the latest episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast. It\u2019s been edited for length and clarity. Do listen to the whole interview to not only learn more about the Bertrand and the legendary rider himself, but also about the up-and-coming talents that Fraser is helping to develop today at Tag Cycling<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Gord<\/a>Gord Fraser\u2019s restored \u201986 Bertrand, a frame built in Gatineau (Hull), Que. Image courtesy Gord Fraser<\/p>\n

SUBSCRIBE Apple Podcasts<\/a> | YouTube<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | Spotify<\/a> | Simplecast<\/a> | RSS<\/a><\/p>\n

The Bertrand family had a shop in Hull for years and years, which wasn\u2019t very far from my dad\u2019s work. My dad had a birth defect\u2014one arm was shorter than the other\u2014so he was a prime candidate for a custom frame. He got fitted by Gilles Bertrand on a wonderful bike. So we became kind of a Bertrand family.<\/p>\n

After I got a licence to race with the Ottawa Bicycle Club, I then got my first serious race bike. I was just going to get a stock 57-cm Bertrand frame. I was in Grade 12 and wasn\u2019t sure if I was still growing or not. I got it painted yellow. And that\u2019s the bike I rode in \u201886 and \u201887. I sold it in \u201888.<\/p>\n

I had acquired a Bertrand a few years ago. It\u2019s maybe a bit small for me, but I just wanted a Bertrand in my collection to remember my junior bike. Then, when you ran that piece about my current Bertrand, where I said I always regretted selling my junior race bike\u2014well, Sean Pemberton read the article, contacted you and said, \u201cI\u2019m the one who bought the frame and I want to give it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sean<\/a>Sean Pemberton (left) passes the \u201980s Bertrand frame back to its original owner, cycling legend Gord Fraser. Image courtesy Gord Fraser<\/p>\n

I was home in the summertime, before the Tour de Beauce, met Sean. We went for a bike ride. Then we went to his place and I got my original Bertrand back.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s gone through some changes because Sean actually wrote it from 1988 to 2005, if you can imagine. He had Gilles repaint it. He chromed the chainstays. He spread the rear stays because when I bought it, it was 127-mm spacing for a 6-speed freewheel, right? So it got cold set to 130 mm for the 8-speed and 9-speed years. He added a second water bottle, too. He had it repainted the same colour, so it\u2019s in really great shape.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had it built up at Fair Wheel Bikes here in Tucson<\/a>. They\u2019ve been my support shop all throughout my career. I gave it to Jeff over there and he put on an 8-speed Dura-Ace group. It\u2019s definitely my No. 1. I mean, I have lots of options to ride, but it\u2019s kind of like when\u2014you know, back in the \u201890s, when you got a really good CD and you\u2019d just listen to the same CD over and over again and your entire music collection got put on hold. Yeah, it\u2019s like that. I don\u2019t know what CD was like that for me. Maybe Soundgarden. All my other bikes now are collecting dust because I\u2019m on my Bertrand almost every day.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t remember selling the bike. I was working at Ottawa Bikeway, Geoff Brown and his dad\u2019s shop. It was a Miyata shop, so I had moved over to Miyata just to be one with the shop. I remember having the Bertrand in the back and trying to sell it. But I couldn\u2019t remember actually exchanging the money. Sean said, well, it\u2019s because I wasn\u2019t in town. I was away racing. He came into the Bikeway and gave the money to a guy I used to race with. That explains why I don\u2019t remember the exchange because I was out of town. But I definitely remembered the exchange back to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gord Fraser regretted letting his old bike go. Back in 1986, the young road racer got a Bertrand,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[221527,49,48,635,205629,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-577749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-bertrand","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-gord-fraser","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}