Ten time World Champ Nicolas Vouilloz has joined French manufacturer Cycles Lapierre. Well, kind of – they’ve announced a “collaboration” with Vouilloz acting as a “strategic partner”. Or, to put it another way, he’s going to use his experience to help them develop new bikes.

There’s a good chance that you haven’t heard of Lapierre, but they’re pretty big in France – we saw tons of their wacky X-Control full sussers at last year’s Freeraid Classic – and have something of a rep for innovation, so the combination of them and Vouilloz should produce some interesting stuff.

And while Nico’s not exactly coming out of retirement, he will be racing some French events on a Vouilloz/Lapierre bike…