Who is behind this site

Arnaud Dufour, and why this trade

I was not born in an excavator.
I came to it out of curiosity, at a trade show, in April 2024, and I have not come out of it since.

This page says where I come from, what brought me to hydraulic excavator attachments, and how I work.
It also says what I do when I am not working, because that counts.
It also says what I will not tell you, and why.

Photos from my own files, chosen by me.
If you recognise yourself in one of them and would rather not appear, tell us and it is withdrawn.
One click opens the photo full size.

In one sentence

A former IT man turned renovation business owner, who chose in 2024 to learn a new trade:
finding the tool that fits your machine, whatever it is.

Arnaud Dufour in a dark suit and pink tie — Arnaud Dufour, manager.
Real photograph, digitally retouched.

01 Work

Thirty years of trades, and a thread that links them

Studying computing to end up here…

A vocational diploma in electronics, then a technical baccalaureate in computer network maintenance.
I started out as a workshop technician, in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, at Servitique, a subsidiary of Xerox.
We repaired laptops and printers there.
Compaqs, IBM — which today we call Lenovo —, Toshibas and Toshiba, Xerox machines.
Then the helpdesk, at IBM, for the customer Darty.
Then Cazan, an IT services company, a subsidiary of Fujifilm.
That is where I learned the sales trade.
And after that: Deconinck, then Tryba.
What came next, here it is in pictures.

I started in IT, I have been doing joinery and renovation since 2011 — and I still sell it — and I discovered excavator attachments after nearly thirty years of working life.
It is not a straight-line career.
It is the career of somebody who likes learning one trade, then another.

Before all that: Marine fusilier. Decorated.
The rest is in the picture, just below.
1996 – 2004: IT. Maintenance technician, then sales engineer in service companies.
Management software for manufacturers and merchants, data exchange between companies.
That is where I learned to read a table of figures without telling myself stories.
2005 – 2010: Retail, on the hunting and fishing side. Deputy manager of the largest hunting and fishing shop in Europe, in the Val-d'Oise.
Teams, departments, customers who want an answer straight away.
And a team of competition anglers set up and run from the shop, with its competitions, its exhibitions and its young people.
2011 – today: Joinery and renovation, at L'Isle-Adam. An employee of a joinery network first, then manager of my own companies from 2013 to 2022.
I still sell it, through Expert conseil:
the excavator took over in 2024, it replaced nothing.
Sites to run, tradespeople to coordinate, customers to whom you owe what you promised, on the date you promised.
April 2024: INTERMAT, and the revelation. The construction machinery show.
I went out of curiosity, I came away with a conviction:
a machine is only worth the tool it carries, and almost nobody explains how to choose that tool.
For two years a leading player in attachments had been offering to work with me.
This time, I said yes:
an immersion on dozens of earthmoving and demolition sites, learning the trade at the foot of the machines.
2025 – 2026: My own company, then À LA PELLE. A first consultancy company in 2025, business management training alongside it, and in 2026 the decision to devote an entire company to this one subject:
hydraulic excavator attachments, all makes, all tonnages, all couplers.
My only attachments are my family.

The fishing rod aisles of the shop, seen from above — The shop:
the rod aisles, seen from above.
Real photograph.

The shop's circular rod display — The MILO rod display.
The Italian brand ofEmilio « Milo » Colombo, three times world champion with the national team.
The speed record was then 515 fish in one hour, by Fernand Manière — the Sensas groundbait that bears the number still exists.
Milo Colombo confided to me that he had beaten it.
The Frenchman Burckenstock then took it to 590 fish, a French record.
In 2014, Milo Colombo recounted having beaten him in a duel, winning all three legs, when Burckenstock held the record at 615 fish.
The record was never ratified: the French federation, like the international federation, refused this kind of record for ecological reasons.

Arnaud Dufour in the rod department, preparing equipment — The Deconinck show, a fair that brings together the biggest international brands.
And me, dreaming in front of the finest rods.
The one I am holding costs six thousand euros.
The firm will sell three of them during the show.
Real photograph.

What this career does not say, and which I prefer to write myself: my experience of excavator attachments dates from 2024.
I do not have fifteen years of civil engineering behind me.
I have fifteen years of renovation sites — which I still do —, a past as an IT man, and two years spent learning this particular trade in the field, with people who have been practising it for far longer than me.

Because nobody sees the whole landscape

The world of the hydraulic excavator is so vast that nobody sees the whole of it.
One and the same carrier digs, demolishes, sorts, prunes, clears snow.
The vocabulary changes from one trade to the next, coupler standards do not resemble one another, and a well-informed buyer can get it wrong without ever knowing why.

On the sites I have visited since 2024, I have seen the same scene repeat itself:
a tool bought from a catalogue, fitted to a machine that could not feed it, and six months lost looking for why the output was not there.
It is nobody's fault.
It is that somebody is missing between the maker of the tool, the seller of the machine and the person who works with it.

That is the place I have chosen. Coordinating and calculating, rather than selling a catalogue.
My past in IT serves me every day:
a flow, a pressure, a lifting chart — those are data, and data can be checked.

Three questions, then we look at the machine

Arnaud Dufour in a suit, hand open, talking to an operator in an orange hi-vis vest and to a manager holding a tablet, in front of a long row of hydraulic excavators and buckets — **Computer-generated image.**
This yard does not exist and this meeting never took place.
What is true is the pleasure of going: onto a yard, in front of the machines, with the people who use them.

I ask three questions before talking about a tool. The machine: make, model and tonnage.
The coupler type.
What comes out of the auxiliary line, flow and pressure.
Until I have those three, we are not discussing a tool, we are discussing impressions.
I come and look at the machine. Nothing replaces an analysis at the foot of the machine, in real conditions.
I do have an office, but that is not where problems get settled.
I have no stock to clear and no brand to impose. I manufacture nothing, I am tied to no manufacturer.
If the tool you need is in no catalogue I know, I go and look for it.
“I don't know” is an answer I give. Followed by “I will check”.
This site is full of dashes where a value is not documented, and that is deliberate.
I work with artificial intelligences, and I say so. They write, I decide.
The page Transparency explains what they do here, and what they do not do.

Trade shows, people, and still learning

Arnaud Dufour, manager — Me, on an ordinary day.
Real photograph, digitally retouched.

I like trade shows. INTERMAT in 2024, the deconstruction trades meeting in Orléans in June 2026, and the ones to come.
A trade show is the place where the tool is set on the ground, where you can walk round it, and where you can talk to the person who designed it.

I like meeting people from the trade. Operators, mechanics, fabricators, hire companies, site managers.
They are the ones who know what a tool really does, once it has left the brochure.
I have run an online professional group under that name, À LA PELLE, since before the company existed.

I like learning. This trade repays me well:
every family of attachments is a world, and every site teaches me something I did not know the day before.
In recent years:
computer-aided technical drawing, business management, the consultative approach in selling.
When I do not understand a tool, I ask the question publicly, and there is always somebody to answer.

Where to run into me: the diary of trade shows and demonstrations, in France, is kept up to date on the page News, with the date on which each item of information was recorded.

The little blue pill

I was young, on temporary contracts, and I had a friend who could do anything with a computer.
I could do almost anything, and above all I knew how to say yes.
One Monday, the agency calls:
two days, a hotel, an assignment about which nothing can be said, except that a tie is required.
I did not have a tie.
I borrowed one.
We were sent to the hotel of a large theme park, the one with the round ears, to update the handheld computers of sales people and executives who had come from all over the world.
A big laboratory.
A very secret meeting, with badges, people speaking quietly and doors that closed behind us.
A small pill that nobody, at the time, had yet heard of.
On the screens we were updating, curves that were rising, and smiles we did not understand.
We did our work properly, ate at the buffet, slept in a bed far too big for a temp, and left again with the tie.
A few months later, the whole planet was talking about that pill.
I am not saying that the worldwide success of the product is down to the effectiveness of our two days.
Nor am I saying the opposite.
I gave the tie back.

Humorous illustration: two young IT workers in a theme-park hotel, on the eve of the launch of a little blue pill — Two temps, a hotel, and the best-kept secret of the year.
Synthetic illustration, humorous style.

02 The Navy

Marine fusilier, and decorated

Arnaud Dufour as a young man, a marine fusilier, beret and medal — Marine fusilier, decorated.
Real photograph.

The marine fusilier who cannot swim

I served in the Navy, as a marine fusilier, and I came out of it decorated.
I had been taught to hold a post, to protect installations, to obey quickly and to think all the same.
Since then, I fish, I kayak, I go to the sea, I go to the swimming pool, and I get into boats that move.
I have nearly drowned ten times in my life.
Ten.
I counted them.
A full keepnet and a slippery bank.
A kayak that decided to turn over without asking my opinion.
A wave that was not expected.
The reason comes down to four words, and I would rather you learned it from me than from a comrade:
I cannot swim.
People have asked me how a marine fusilier manages not to know how to swim.
I always answer the same thing:
with a great deal of care.
And a rubber ring, when nobody is looking.

Humorous illustration: a marine fusilier in a beret, a duck rubber ring round his waist, fishing rod in hand — Beret, medal, fishing rod, duck rubber ring.
Synthetic illustration, humorous style.

A word, because it matters. This story is mine, and it is told with a smile.
It mocks nobody, neither the military authorities, nor those who serve.
I am an isolated case, with a trauma that belongs to me and that water reminds me of.
The Navy trained me, made use of my skills, decorated me, and returned me to civilian life without damaging anything I had in my head.
I thank it for that.

03 Fishing

Competition fishing, since I was twelve

Competition angling, since I was twelve. When I am neither on a site nor at a trade show, there is a fair chance I am at the water's edge, rod in hand.
I competed from the age of twelve, and won titles, in France and abroad.
I chaired two associations: the Team Deconinck competition club, and La Goujonnaise, l'Hameçon du Vexin & du Parisis.
I was also secretary of the Val-d'Oise Fishing Federation.
Pole fishing teaches patience and precision:
that is useful in this trade.

My record

My clubs

Fontaine-lès-Vervins, in the Aisne: I learn to fish there, and become the association's secretary at 16
Laon, in the Aisne: Majo Pêche and La Gaule Laonnoise
Deuil-la-Barre, in the Val-d'Oise: la Pêche Compétition Deuilloise
La Goujonnaise, l'Hameçon du Vexin & du Parisis: president
The association
Team Deconinck: president, at its creation in 2006
Its story

Titles and podiums

Winner of the Challenge Jean-Pierre Laplace, with La Goujonnaise: 2005
2nd in Romainville: 2009
3rd in Montgeroult: 2009
5th in pairs in Ham, out of 40: 2009

French championships, with Team Deconinck

Grand National final, in Loos: 2006, and Cédric saves the day for us, 20th out of 176
French corporate championship, in Montbéliard and Belfort: 2009, the club is represented there individually and as a team

Abroad

International match in Mantova, Italy, organised by Milo Colombo: 2009, three sectors for the club, and the overall win for Didier and Cédric Dufour
Messines, Belgium, pairs match: 2009

A television report on match fishing, in which I am introduced as a competitor from my club at the time.
Six minutes:
the programme summary, then the sequence at the water's edge.
In the foreground, Jean-Pierre Bosselut, my friend.
Real video, taken from the programme.

At the water's edge

Arnaud Dufour holding a carp before putting it back in the water — Marc Dufour, whom everyone calls Nounours.
A former colleague, met in Belgium, and a club member.
Of the Deconinck house only the Warneton shop remains today.
Real photograph.

Wide view of a bank on a competition day — A club match, at the Montgeroult lake.
The stretch was lent to us by La Goujonnaise, l'Hameçon du Vexin & du Parisis.
Real photograph.

Cup presentation after a competition, Arnaud Dufour in the centre — The prize-giving.
Cédric Dufour is holding the trophy, Rudy Moreau behind him — my américaine partner — and me just behind.
Cédric runs JMC Motors, a car broker.
In front, my mother, Annick Dufour-Briquet.
And Monsieur Chaintrier, who chaired La Goujonnaise, l'Hameçon du Vexin & du Parisis for many years.
He has left us.
Real photograph.

The team meal after a competition — The after-match meal.
Arnaud and Stéphane, who runs Nouveaux Métaux.
Real photograph, digitally retouched.

The pole angler's movement, rod held out over the water — Monsieur Jean-Pierre Bosselut, at the water's edge.
He coached me and took me along.
He won so many matches.
Small, but he landed the big fish.
A humble man, who loved life and fishing.
Real photograph.

Arnaud Dufour showing a fine catch — My father Didier Dufour and me, a bream, at Beaumont-sur-Oise.
Training for the reel championship.
He fished the French championship several times, and won a national division at reel fishing.
Real photograph.

The rod holdall left on the pavement

First round of the championship.
I arrive, I park, I open the boot.
No rods.
The holdall had stayed on the pavement, outside the house.
I had put it down while I loaded the rest, and I had never put it back in the car.
I only realised on arrival.
It was the anglers on the pegs next to mine who got me out of it.
Men I barely knew lent me their rods — not a spare rod: their rods.
I fished that round with tackle that was not mine.
That is what competition taught me, and it holds for hydraulic excavators too: tackle, you always end up finding some.
People who lend you theirs, no.

Mantova

Arnaud Dufour at the water's edge, a carp in his hands — Emilio « Milo » Colombo, at an Italian carp fishery.
He is the brand on the display above.
A great man, a great champion.
Real photograph.

The rods lined up under the trees during a competition — Mantova, a match organised by Milo Colombo.
Everything there is red: it is the colour he chose for his brand, the colour of Ferrari.
Real photograph.

Emilio « Milo » Colombo, three times world champion with the Italian team, organised the Mantova matches.
His record, and its sources

Locator map: Mantova, in Lombardy, on the Po plain, between Milano and Venezia, south of Lake Garda — Where Mantova is:
in Lombardy, on the Po plain, between Milano and Venezia, just south of Lake Garda.
A schematic map, drawn from real coordinates.

A competition beside a lake in Mantova, Italy, the anglers lined up — A competition beside a lake in Mantova, Italy.
Real photograph.

Two anglers from the team, from behind, rods held out over the water — Michel Cador and me, training, in Mantova.
You come to learn the water before you compete.
Real photograph.

A bream in the hands, at the edge of a lake — A bream, in Mantova.
Real photograph.

Arnaud Dufour at his fishing peg, a fish in his hand — My father Didier Dufour, in Mantova.
In April 2009 he wins the overall américaine classification there with my brother Cédric — they win both of their rounds.
An international match organised by Milo Colombo, over two rounds, eighty at the start.
We were three teams, and our club took three sectors there.
Real photograph.

Silhouette of an angler at the water's edge, against the light — Me in the foreground, Cédric Dufour behind, at the water's edge, in Mantova.
Our second team entry.
This is fishing known as the américaine : two anglers share the same peg and help each other out.

04 Draughts

A passion since early childhood

Draughts. A passion since I was very small, and a player registered with the French draughts federation.
Of modest level, for want of time and practice, but with the luck of having played many games against the greatest French and international players.
A world championship at Drancy, two French championships, at Chéu, my club, and at Compiègne.
My best game I lost at Drancy against a blind opponent:
I had not seen that he had moved.
You learn a great deal from losing against someone better than yourself.

The game I did not see

An amateur world draughts championship.
My best game, by far:
an hour of clean play, a position I felt was winning, and opposite me a blind opponent, who played on his own board, by touch, with a referee announcing the moves.
I think, I find the move, I play it.
He does not move.
I get up, I walk, I come back.
He still does not move.
After a while, the referee leans towards me:
“He has played, sir.
Ten minutes ago.”
He had played on his board.
Not on mine.
While I was growing impatient, my clock was running.
I lost on time the game I was winning, against a man who could not see the board and who, for his part, had seen everything.
You learn a great deal from losing against someone better than yourself.
You learn even more from losing against yourself.
Since then, in a compatibility study, I check twice that the machine has “played” before concluding.

Arnaud Dufour at the table, hand on forehead, during the amateur world draughts championship — At the amateur world draughts championship.
Real photograph.

The French blitz draughts championship, at Chéu, in August 2023.
Daniel Gaillot, president of the Chéu club, my club, and me.
I commit a fault there that goes unnoticed: a breach of the rules.
This is not the game told above.
Real video.

The great hall of the French draughts championship in Compiègne, the tables lined up and a board in the foreground — The great hall of the French championship, in Compiègne.
Real photograph.

Arnaud Dufour at his game of draughts, his hand on the pieces — At the board, in the panelled hall.
Real photograph.

A draughts board on a table, the championship banner behind — The board, and the championship banner behind.
Real photograph.

Arnaud Cordier, twenty times French draughts champion, at his game in the championship hall — Arnaud Cordier at the board.
Twenty times French champion, including the Compiègne edition.
Real photograph.

Arnaud Dufour facing Kévin Machtelinck, four times French draughts champion — Facing Kévin Machtelinck.
Four times French champion.
Real photograph.

Several games of draughts under way in the tournament hall — The hall in mid-game.
The name cards are masked.
Real photograph.

A player with his hand on his forehead in front of his board, image put through a filter — Hand on forehead, in the middle of a game.
Real photograph, put through a filter.

France is not left behind

We have great champions, and the numbers show it.

Arnaud Cordier, international grandmaster, twenty times French champion.
His record, and the 2024 Compiègne championship
Kévin Machtelinck, international master, four times French champion.
His record
The Chéu club, my club, chaired by Daniel Gaillot, hosted the 2023 French Championship.
The club, and the 2023 results

At the world amateur championship, in Drancy

From 29 April to 6 May 2023: 152 players, some twenty nations, two tournaments at the same time.
First world amateur championship: 84 players, 56 of them French.
Winner: Gabriele D'Amora, Italy.
Best French player: Pierre Monnet, 5th
Open World Cup: 68 players, 11 of them French.
Winner: Jan Groenendijk, Netherlands.
Best French player: Thomy Lucien Mbongo, 12ᵉ

Many champions

We cannot name everyone: we comment on the pictures of this site.
Among those who were there:

Luc Guinard, three times French champion
Papa Cissé, twice French champion
Fidèle Nimbi, twice French champion
Anthony Alavoine, twice French rapid champion
Pierre Monnet, twice French rapid champion

05 Family

A happy family life

I started two and a half months early, and with my life in danger. Six and a half months is early.
The doctors were not sure.
Neither was I, but I had no say in it.
They put me in a glass box, with tubes, and waited to see whether I would hold on.
I held on.
Here I am.
Since then, I make do with what life gives, and I have ended up drawing a simple rule from it:
never give up, always move forward, adapt.
A trade is not a constraint, it is a pleasure, as long as life allows it or we can choose.
And I have never moved forward alone:
friends who kept me standing, working, leisure and sporting relationships, a family, and a wife at my side.
The stories that follow are there for that:
to show how I react when things do not go as planned.

And a happy family life. Eugénie, Adam on my shoulders, and onwards.

With the family

Arnaud Dufour as a small child, finger raised — Me in Vervins, already curious: I am pointing at the Tour du Roy, just next to the house.
Today a fine restaurant, in a fortified town that has kept its remains.
Real photograph.

Eugénie and Arnaud Dufour — Eugénie and me, in Kyiv (Kiev).
A party among friends, in a beautiful hotel, to announce our wedding.
Real photograph.

Eugénie, Adam and Arnaud Dufour, in a boat — Eugénie, Adam and me, on a boat.
Crossing the Seine, at Herblay-sur-Seine.
Real photograph.

Arnaud Dufour and Adam, on a rainy day, the Eiffel Tower behind — Paris, the capital of the world.
A rainy day, with Adam.
Real photograph.

Adam and Arnaud Dufour, pulling faces in the sun — Adam and me, faces allowed.
Real photograph.

Eugénie and Arnaud Dufour in a car — Eugénie and me, on the road.
Real photograph.

Eugénie and Arnaud Dufour at a café terrace — Eugénie and me, on the terrace.
Real photograph.

Eugénie and Arnaud Dufour in formal dress, in front of a stone wall — Eugénie and me, in our Sunday best.
Real photograph.

The spy who wasn't one

Recently, I went to Ukraine with Eugénie, to settle a family and administrative matter.
A there-and-back trip, papers, a stamp.
The first days went as planned, that is to say slowly.
Then, one night, a bombardment not far away.
The next day, we learn that photos of the two of us are going round, from hand to hand, and that people in uniform are looking for us.
Not to help us with the stamp.
Somewhere in a file, a man bearing my name was expected as a Russian spy, and two foreigners arriving just before the explosions make one coincidence too many.
I have never so well understood the expression “your blood runs cold”.
I do what any Frenchman does in such a case:
I call the embassy.
A pleasant voice answers me:
“We will call you back.”
The consul had just changed, everybody had just been replaced, and nobody yet knew who was replacing whom.
Nobody called me back.
A small administrative error, a letter in the wrong place, an official who ended up laughing, and me who laughed much later.
A funny story, this one, because it had no sequel.
It could have been dramatic.
I got my stamp.
And since then, when somebody tells me “we will call you back”, I call back.

Humorous illustration: a traveller with a file of papers, surrounded by soldiers examining him with a magnifying glass — One man, one file, one stamp, and a whole general staff.
Synthetic illustration, humorous style.

The president in wax

A waxworks museum, Adam on my shoulders, and next to us a president of the Republic applauding, motionless, for years.
Adam thought he looked like somebody off the television.
I told him it was indeed him.
He asked why he was not moving.
I answered that it was because he was thinking.
Adam thought too, for a long time, then decided it was not serious and that we could take the photo.
I like that photo because it says exactly what I think about a trade show, a site or a machine:
you can be impressed, and still take the photo.

Arnaud Dufour with Adam on his shoulders, next to a wax statue — Adam on my shoulders.
The president is made of wax, he applauds all the same.
Real photograph.

Do you appear in one of these photos and would rather not be there? Write to us, it is withdrawn:
contact@a-la-pelle.com.
You do not have to justify yourself, and no request will be refused.
The detail is in paragraph 13 of the legal notice.

Why these stories are here. Not out of pride.
Because a customer who entrusts their machine to somebody has the right to know who that somebody is, what they have been through, and how they react when things do not go as planned.
They start from true facts and are told with a smile:
the details are there to bring them alive, not to mislead.
The rest of the page is serious; this one smiles.
Both are true.

06 What I will not say

Three things you will not read here

No customer names. What I have learned on other people's sites belongs to me; their business does not.
I talk about solutions, never about who bought them.
No customer reviews. This company is young and has no customer to quote yet.
Inventing one would be a lie, and the law calls it something else.
The day there is one, it will be written here, with the date.
No inflated years of experience. Two years in this trade, not fifteen.
My credibility is what this site demonstrates page after page, and what I will tell you when you call me.

Shall we talk?

A doubt about a coupler, a machine whose flow rate you do not know, a tool you cannot find anywhere:
call, or describe your machine in the form.

Written study within 3 working days, complete file.

Request a study

Or write to me directly:
arnaud@a-la-pelle.com
I am the one who reads them, and the one who answers.

Arnaud Dufour on LinkedIn

How this site is made

What we know how to do

The trade, for real