The Radavist

There’s never been such a quagmire of debate in the vintage cycling world. This one question; Who has Merckx’s actual hour record bike? will cause hours upon hours of debate on many vintage forums. On Monday I’m planning on laying out all the information I’ve come up with. A very special Merckx Mondays.

All this was sparked because Lodovico from Cinelli shot me this picture in an email. It shows the coveted Cinelli Laser track bike and a supposed Eddy Merckx hour record training bike. The frameset weighs an astonishing 1450gm! Lodovico is confirming more details such as the track end stamping, BB detailing and other characteristics of Eddy’s hour record bikes. Hopefully he’ll be sending me updates to include in Monday’s post.

Check back on Monday for the full post and be sure to bring your facts and opinions to share!

7-11 with DA 7400 group

To continue the Merckx Mondays post from today; this past weekend was Eddy’s promotional visit to NYC. Along with his Ride in the Park on Saturday, he was at Strictly Bicycles in Fort Lee, New Jersey signing autographs for an hour.

Side note on the 7-11 pictured above. How’d you get that DA stem to take the 26.4 Giro de Italia bars? I thought the stems were 25.4 clamp? Spanner?

picture by Sasha

For this week’s Merckx Mondays, I’m featuring another Eddy Merckx from my stable. This 60cm Corsa Extra is built with Columbus SLX tubing and is fully-chromed under the Team Stuttgart colors. Merckx produced a series of Stuttgart pro team bikes in 1989 and 1990. Later, the Eddy Merckx company produced a run of bikes in the same colors for the consumer market. That’s what this particular frame is from. Based on Cadre‘s serial number codes, my bike is from 1992, two years after Stuttgart regrouped to form team Telekom.

I remember when I saw this bike in the park this summer. It was probably the first non-NJS track bike I’ve seen with a Suntour Superbe Pro group that I liked. I don’t know why I’m such a Campy snob when it comes to vintage track bikes, but it’s the truth. I’ll admit it. I just dig the original fluted Pista cranks and Nuovo Record rings but Atanz’s SLX Pista is making me question my Campy love. This thing is immaculate.

pantographed super record crankset non-fluted

This week’s Merckx Mondays comes from my own personal stable. I bought this colorful Corsa Extra from someone here in NYC and took my time building it. After hunting down a series of pantographed Eddy Merckx components and a nice selection of Super Record and Nuovo Record parts, I built it up.

This week’s Merckx Mondays is all about the team 7-11 bikes! One of the more iconic team colors, the 7-11 production frames were made from Columbus TSX tubing.

Team Faema Merckx pic by Marcello

Amazing pictures from this year’s Eurobike. Here’s the classic Faema Merckx road bike with Nuovo Record, Cinelli cockpit,saddle and in immaculate condition.

Here’s a beautiful Eddy Merckx from the late 80’s. Looks like a mix of Super and Nouvo Record. Pantographed chainring and non-fluted Super Record cranks, just like on my Corsa Extra. Great build!

Legendary Molteni Colors dressed in Nuovo Record

1986/7 Eddy Merck Pista, Columbus SLX, Team Faema Colors

It’s another Merckx Monday! This time, it’s a road and a track bike. Justin’s Faema is absolutely stunning!

Since I talk about Eddy Merckx bikes so much on here, I figured I’d give them a weekly slot. Here’s the first entry for the new Merckx Mondays series.

This one comes from Chained Revolution. Classic logo with a full Super Record Pista group and a classic Cinelli cockpit. Beautiful!

Good to see even in competitive environments, the pros of yesterday could still goof off.

It seems as though there’s been more talk about Eddy Merckx bikes on this blog as of late, so apologies. Jeremy runs a site called Tears for Gears and was responsible for cracking the Merckx serial number system a bit back. His site is littered with incredible information and he too has a strong love for Merckx bicycles.

After I got my MX-Leader, we were discussing MAX (MXL’s predecessor) and he informed me that he would be uploading a catalog from 1992. Very informative, so head over and read his site.

Finalllllly got this bad rainbow boy completed. Still dialing it in and getting the fit just right, so I can’t really give a good report about how it rides.

Definitely not stoked on the tires either, but they’ll have to do. Eventually I’d like to put a basket on the front and maybe a longer stem. Or hell, even drops!

Build list:
-61cm Eddy Merckx Corsa Extra SLX New frameset
-Nuovo Record: Headset, front and rear derailleurs, brake calipers, levers and pantographed downtube shifters
-Nuovo Record hubs 36h to Mavic MA4 rims.
-Superleggera Pedals, Cinelli clips and Cinelli straps
-Super Record: non-fluted cranks, pantographed rings and bottom bracket.
-Corsa Record (I know I know…) seatpost
-Concor saddle
-Cinelli 1a Panto’d stem
-Cinelli Priest bars

Previously:
Belgian Beauty

Kind of interesting spin on the Belgian-born Eddy Merck’s logo by Perks and Mini. PAM actually did a pretty good job on this.

Gotta find out when and where it’ll be available.

I have a thing for Eddy Merckx bikes. Track and Road. My admiration knows no bounds. Sure my Belgian white is pretty and my new Corsa Extra is wild, but my all time favorite team colors are the Stuttgarts and the Telekoms. Any coincidence that the Stuttgarts are the predecessor to the Telekoms?

Team Stuttgart became Team Telekom shortly after the original Stuttgart team bike was released.

If anyone has one of these two team colors in a 58 – 60cm – lemme know!

Both images via Velospace.

I’m no photographer and these are far from Fyxomatosis‘ work, but I just took some snaps of my Eddy Merckx pista with my new Canon G10 and I’m beyond impressed.

Check em out!

As part of what I’m calling the bastardization of a period correct race machine, aka modernizing my vintage Eddy Merckx road bike, I was looking for a new, modern road saddle. I’ve tried other Fizik saddles before and aside from the Arione, I was never really sold on their shapes. When I was Interbike, I talked with the Fizik marketing manager about how I love my Brooks Swift and vintage Cinelli Unicanitors because of the right amount of flex you can achieve after breaking them in.

Check out more below!

I finally built my Eddy Merckx MX-Leader with a modern road group. After putting a mix of Red and Force on it, these Phil Wood road hubs I picked up at Interbike are the icing on the cake. This has got to be one of the nicest wheelsets I’ve ever owned. Full bike photos will be up on Monday.