Re: [CR]Merckx Hour Record Bike-Stem Length

(Example: Racing:Jean Robic)

In-Reply-To: <11e301c8b120$2ba78d90$8001000a@D5P9XJ81>
References: <11e301c8b120$2ba78d90$8001000a@D5P9XJ81>
Date: Thu, 8 May 2008 22:22:06 -0700
To: "Mark Petry" <mark@petry.org>, <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
From: "Jan Heine" <heine94@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [CR]Merckx Hour Record Bike-Stem Length


At 8:28 AM -0700 5/8/08, Mark Petry wrote:
>The bike in the pic looks like a Cinelli production stem that has been bead
>blasted.

I am not sure that the bike at Colnago is the real hour-record bike. When Bicycle Quarterly ran an article in Vol. 3, No. 1, on the hour record bike, I had to research the issue in great detail.

I found three contenders:

- the actual hour record bike, with Pino parts, etc. - a back-up bike with standard Cinelli, etc., parts - a third bike that has been exposed in Italy as the hour record bike, but has a different geometry and has nothing to do with the hour record. It may or may not be a bike Eddy Merckx used in other events.

What Merckx claimed was the real hour record bike was displayed at George Gibbs' Il Vecchio Bicycles in Seattle for a while in the late 1980s. It had all the special parts. The decals on the frame do not match those in the photos taken in Mexico. However, I assume they replaced the decals later, as it is unlikely that the actual record bike and the backup had different decals. The specific details of the frame are pretty unique, so it has to be one of the two.

By the way, some Rebour drawings of the hour record bike are at

http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com/images/rebour.jpg

Note that the handlebars with the holes were not used in Mexico.

Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
140 Lakeside Ave #C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.bikequarterly.com