Merckx owners thread

Yes, the owner has confirmed resprayed this year. Not sure why these colours, I guess that and the fork devalue it somewhat.

Remove the ugly decal on the forks, stick on a black groupset and seatpost, bars and stem and ride the hell out of it. Will ride beter with the carbon forks anyway.

Colours are a bad copy of the Team Telekom colours, I guess. ;-)

Ride it and look for a real Merckx MX fork, they will make it a complete different bike. Forks are probably pretty hard to find but they do pop up from time to time.

I saw this on eBay and was tempting myself, just came up at the wrong time of month!

It was going for cheap and seller only a mile away so took the plunge. It was Mercian who resprayed so not sure why have gone with those colours, perhaps just owner request. Will ask when I collect.

Heh, was about to bid on it but completely forgotten... Good that it went to forum hands, keep us updated! Mx leaders are such fine frames. Loving my one at the moment which I got a couple of weeks back. Got a unique feel to it being a steel one.

true, I sold mine because it was 2 cm to large. Right now there are 3 in the right size for sale around here (price less than 650 euro for complete bike) but don't like the color. Damned, loved mine in Telekom colours.

Yup, chainstay shape looks right but the paintjob is only vaguely close to telekom.

I have this MX Leader which I bought from pedalroom from Belgium, got 9 speed TI campag on it currently. Going to be sourcing some 11 speed, maybe sram red 22 or campag record 11. Haters going to hate with sram on eddy Merckx, had force back then didn't enjoy the hoods, really missed the superior feeling of the double tap shifting is something I cant just ignore. I reckon I'll try and learn to love the hoods just to get that shifting feeling again...

Lovely, looks to be my size too.

If you change to modern setup, you should change everything (including stem -> ahead type). I finished my '98 Master with a Sram Force group (10 speed) and modern/lightweight components and that looks great (I'm a bit prejudiced, ofcourse...).

I think SRAM Force looks great on a classic frame, and I personally would keep (have kept) the quill stem.

wouldn't mind an ahead as I have an Ahead grammo stem, might end up using an adapter, or extend my mx leader fork, or buy a new mx leader fork which will be expensive. can always go carbon fork, but it wont be the same..

Adapters look shitty (I tried one...) but BBB has 1" fork extenders (cost 10-15 GBP) so you can use the original fork and use an ahead stem and headset.

PhilPub
I think SRAM Force looks great on a classic frame, and I personally would keep (have kept) the quill stem.

The frame and livery is from 8 speed Campa Ergopower days. I would keep to silver coloured bike parts. Only contemporary bits I'd suggest would be cables, pedals and tyres.

The frame and livery is from 8 speed Campa Ergopower days.

I doubt that. Frame is from later date so I think it has 9 speed Record Titanium on it. Crankset is definitely not 8 speed. And it's one of the later MX Leaders, think end nineties (early ones had other paint scheme and had the MX Leader decal placed close to the headtube).

You talking about the frame I posted? If so, it's a 1998 frame according to the bb with team SC colours

Picked it up yesterday, owner tells me that Mercian and him agreed not to paint in true Telekom colours as they were worried about copyright infringement. Absolutely no reason not to believe this, had refurb receipts for over £500, paid in July this year.
Anyway, very nice frame, looking forward to getting it built up. But has anyone got any pictures of MXL with modern black components? I'm getting the feeling that this will just look wrong, especially since every photo I see all have periodish silver groupsets.

I was, indeed.

owner tells me that Mercian and him agreed not to paint in true Telekom colours as they were worried about copyright infringement

that's correct.Deutsche Telekom (phone operator) has rights on the RAL-code of the "pink".

You talking about the frame I posted? If so, it's a 1998 frame according to the bb with team SC colours

In 1996 Team Telekom switched from Merckx to Pinarello. MX-Leader and Telekom was limited only to 1993-1995.

Oops! Taking about the Telekom Merckx not yours... Your frame is indeed from 1998. I don't know any team that used that livery.

I'm getting the feeling that this will just look wrong, especially since every photo I see all have periodish silver groupsets.

It is not a question of the tubesets but the livery of your frame. It just calls to mid-1990s and Zeitgeist other than for carbon wheels was silver and not black.

this is a nice piece imo (frame wise)

titanium frame and steel forks, was owned by Peter Willemsen, a late-90s Belgian pro

Nice. Them handlebars tho!

seen here

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.451661621705174.1073742058.167881040083235&type=3