Recently, somebody posted that the Eddy Merckx issue of Cycle Sport showed photos showing that Merckx' hour record bike did not have holes in the bars.
I had been wondering about this myself. Rebour reports that there were holes. Based on a TV program on the event, Rebour reported that the bar/stem combo was changed just before the event, and afterward again. Unfortunately, he does not specifically mention that he saw holes in the bars during the event. (Rebour analyzed the bike for its weight before he saw it, and concluded that the holes in the bars only are nice-looking, but the real weight savings must come from (then-unobtainable) titanium spindles and axles in hubs, BB and pedals.)
According to Rebour, before the effort, there was a Cinelli stem with the sides machined to make it lighter. Then a Pino ti stem during the event. Then a standard Cinelli stem with no machining. We know from photos that the latter was joined by bars with holes. (I assume there were three sets of bars to go with the three sets of stems to facilitate these lightning changes.)
The bike that was exhibited at Il Vecchio did have holes in the bars, which were mounted to the Pino stem. There were more than in the bars shown by Rebour with the Cinelli stem. So there were at least two sets of bars with holes.
The historic photos I have seen (including the one in Cycle Sport, which is the same published in Vintage Bicycle Quarterly Vol. 3, No. 2) show the bike from the side or the front, so you can't tell. If there are holes, they don't show from this angle, as they are on the backside of the bars. (The photo in VBQ and Cycle Sport seems to have been taken specifically with the purpose of "almost" showing whether there are holes or not.)
A photo in Cycle Sport of the bike in its current state does appear to be the hour record bike, with a repaint. It does not have holes in the bars (but it does have the Pino stem). Since it did have holes earlier when it was in Seattle, there is no doubt the bars on the bike have been replaced since it was here. Maybe they were replaced in an attempt of a historically correct restoration, indicating Merckx did not have holes in his bars, and just used the "holed" bars earlier when he showed the bike to make it look cooler. Or the "holed" bars got trashed in shipping or while lying around the factory, and they replaced them with new ones, not bothering to drill holes.
The fact that the bar tape on the bike that came to Seattle, with "holed" bars, was a bit grubby, as one would expect if Merckx (without gloves) had held them for an hour of all-out effort, seems to indicate that the "holed" bars are the originals, as does the fact that Rebour, who presumably saw the bike moving on TV, concluded there were holes. But in the end, nobody knows except those who were there...
But there was that TV program in the early 1970s that showed the hour record and bike. I wonder whether anybody has a copy? Or a photo of the hour record bike (with Merckx on it, during the record, rather than warming up or practicing, as Rebour indicates they changed stem and bars at the last minute), from behind, showing the backside of the bars?
The proof of holes in the bars would be easy enough to make with the right photo showing just one hole! The opposite proof is harder, as one would have to compare carefully the location of holes with the sections of bars that are intact, without holes. -- Jan Heine, Seattle Editor/Publisher Vintage Bicycle Quarterly c/o Il Vecchio Bicycles 140 Lakeside Ave, Ste. C Seattle WA 98122 http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com