The Radavist

Photo by Anthony Saffery

When you have a frame as long as I had my Eddy Merckx Stuttgart Pista, you get separation anxiety when you decide to sell it. All those worries have just been washed away as Anthony emailed me a photo of the bike built up, soaking in the Boston sun! Yeah, I know, this got in a tad too late for Merckx Mondays!

So stoked for you dude. Ride on!

Tony Fast, Justin and I went on a road ride this morning. Justin loaned Tony his Eddy Merckx road bike but he had to ride his P-Fix to pick it up. After our ride, I got Tony to hit a nice barspin. Love that FYXO kit!

Ride / Relax

A few people emailed me yesterday after posting the photos of my Eddy Merckx track bike, asking why I had one silver bar end and one black compression plug. One guy went as far to say that the silver bar end “ruined the photo” and “compromised the whole build”. Really? It sure doesn’t ruin the ride…

Hopefully this answers your questions. I guess I could always just drop the black one in there…

Cropped and ‘shopped image from this scan

I love Columbus MAX. Over the years, I’ve owned many steel frames. From Reynolds to True Temper and various Columbus tubesets. My Eddy Merckx Pista is SLX and my Eddy Merckx Road is MXL. The ride difference is very noticeable and as a bigger rider, the MXL (a later form of MAX), just fits my riding style. In fact, Ian at Icarus is working on a MAX track bike for me right now.

Chris Bishop is also a huge MAX freak. So much so that he manages to come across obscure ads from 1988 French cycling magazines. I don’t read French, but based on the little diagram in the bottom right, I’d imagine the translation notes the almost lack of bottom bracket sway when you stomp on the pedals due to the bi-oval downtube (see the original scan here).

Now my question for Chris is, what’ll we use for my road bike? In the meantime, check out the progress on Jo’s track frame (which I’m assuming is using MAX) here at the Bishop Flickr.

Urban Velo issue 24 is now available for download and an Eddy Merckx MX-L made the cover! I wonder whose that is? Hrmmmm….

Awwwww Andy, you shouldn’t have! Mr. White from Fyxomatosis sent me this belated v-day photo. Man, there’s a lotta Eddy Merckx on here today!

Leave it to Sasha to dig up the gold! While this could have just as easily been set up for a Monday post, It’s good to give it some attention by itself. One question though, did Eddy Merckx ever ride Columbus Record or KL tubing? Wasn’t it past his professional racing time?

This is something that I’ve been trying to dial in to my best ability for a few weeks now. The classic Eddy Merckx “EM” logo flipped to PINP, for Prolly is not Probably. I’ve wanted to do a vinyl-cut sticker or a decal and the Viking logo doesn’t quit work. There have been a few variations, one of which disengaged the “n” and deleted the “i” but in the end, I think I like this one the best. I’m not a graphic designer, but I think it came out pretty good. What do you guys think?

What better way to ease a hangover than to look at Beautiful Bicycles all day. Chari & Co‘s Zunow love is as deep as my adoration for Eddy Merckx bikes. Yuki’s got quite the collection building up and this copper-toned Zunow built with Dura Ace 7400 is a total looker. Check out more photos at Chari’s blog!

We first saw a sneak peek at the Eddy Merckx-inspired Brooklyn Machine Works Adidas Consortium sneakers last month. Now with the release date slated for May 15th, more detailed photos are surfacing of these shoes. No one has photos of the black colorway yet, which leads me to believe that they’ll be a future release. To check out more photos, head over to High Snobiety.

Previously:
Brooklyn Machine Works: Adidas Eddy Merckx Sneakers

The Laek House Sping 2010 shirts are now available in their webstore. My favorite’s the Don’t Buy Upgrades, Ride Up Grades Shirt which features a supposed quote from Eddy Merckx and an iconic graphic of the Stelvio Pass. Lookin good Ethan!

Previously:
Laek House: Don’t Buy Upgrades, Ride Up Grades Shirt

Photo by Andy White

It doesn’t always have to be Monday to talk about Eddy Merckx bicycles. I’ve posted about Andy from Fyxomatosis’ MXLeader Pista many times here before. Last weekend, the ginger Track Cunt packed up his bike and flew over to Auckland to participate in All Track 2010. You can read some of his race report here and here with more to come later.

For now, enjoy this photo of him from Steadyrollin‘ below.

Sorry. I had to. This image from Bike Wires just captures the spirit of the Cannibal.

Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx sits up on his cycle and takes it easy as he leads the pack during the eighth lap of the Tour de France, 1969. This would be the first of five victories for Merckx at the Tour de France.

I always loved the Faema jerseys and Eddy Merckx bikes.

Original image via Bike Wires via Agence France Presse/Getty

There’s only one thing hotter than vintage porn and that’s vintage bike porn. Which would you prefer? Miss August 1971, or this Eddy Merckx Cinelli stem?

Andy, the TC, over at Fyxomatosis snagged a lovely Merckx TSX from Velomine a while back. He’s in the process of building it up now.

You better put some damn derailleurs on this one man! It’s a TSX!

without looking below, which one is the re-issue?

Chari & Co just got in two 7-11 Eddy Merckx framesets. The one on the left is the reissued Corsa Extra (most likely SLX) and the one of the right is the original, made from Columbus TSX or SLX (depending on the year and frame size). The major differences are noticeable right off the bat. The original 7-11 had a flat crown fork and the reissue had a sloping crown. The rear triangle on the original is also chromed, whereas the reissue is not; most companies had stopped chroming bikes in the later 90’s. The original had Eddy Merckx stamped on the fork ends and dropouts whereas the reissue has Campagnolo.

Overall, it’s a good example of a re-issued classic. Read up more on the 7-11’s history at last week’s Merckx Mondays.