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It isn't a genuine Eddy Merckx, but was built by Falcon Cycles who licensed the Merckx name. I had one as a nipper. They were cheap, I think about £80 in the late 70s, but mine was my first proper bike with derailleur gears and I rode it all over the place.
Surface rust should just come off with a stiff wire brush. Good luck with restoring it.
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My Ciocc is finally finished!
At the clubhouse as well! You love 14...
Very, very, very nice though, good work.
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It's nearly finished. I just need to decide on a paint colour. Possibly flamboyant purple with black headtube and seat tube bands. The decals are gold.I think it's a 1951 R O Harrison frame because of the serial number, although the lugs look like a Bill Hurlow/Mal Rees design but with slightly larger curves. The fork crown, brake bridge and track ends would probably rule this out being a Bill Hurlow frame though.
Components are Titan Stem, Stratalite Madison Bars, Stronglight 49D cranks, Lyotard Berthet Pedals, Airlite Hubs, Mavic MA2 rims, Panaracer 27 x 1 tyres.
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That's Tressostar cotton bar tape. I spent far too much money on the bars and they offer no comfortable hand positions, too curvey on top, and too deep in the drops. They look good though.
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Are polo/hack bikes allowed in this thread?
Spent today digging out bike parts from the shed and re-arranging them till I had a complete bike. I had to re-install everything 2-4 times! Bottom bracket needed extra spacers, original brakes sucked, cables were wrong size, chain & gear ratio needing readjusting several times.
But I have a reasonable bike at the end of it. Low enough gear for polo but high enough for a bit of off general riding. I may take the suspension off depending on how it handle for actual polo playing.
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Is that a hole in the fork crown? Put a brake on it and come time trialling, I find the lo-pro ideal for medium gear events.
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how low are those bars though? looks so uncomfortable, what's it like to ride? (i've never ridden a lo pro)
looks cool as fook like...
they're alright, but i'm pretty stretched out forward - seems a good position to really get power down. i want to put some tt bars on it at some point too and see how they feel too, if only for the craic.
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I'm going fixed on this one. I've built some wheels with track hubs - phil woods on Open Pros. Silver seems to work pretty good. Any suggestions on changes?
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About
Current Projects chat and miscellany
Posted by
@emoxfag
I have been tasked with clearing out my parents garage and while I was there I found my dads old bike. Much to my surprise it is an Eddy Merckx ‘tour de France’. It’s been in there for 18 years, so it is pretty dirty and has some (what I hope is only) surface rust on the stem, bars, wheels and possibly a few bits on the frame.
Dates are not my dad’s strong point but he thinks he would have got it probably in the late 70s or early 80s. It was last used in the late 80s to take my sister or I to school through the mean streets of Shepard's Bush. I reckon it was probably one of the more basic models as my parents were not exactly flush with cash, but I’m struggling to find out any info – I had a quick look and couldn’t see a number stamped on the BB shell, should I be looking somewhere else? I’d be interested to know more about this bike, so if someone can recommend a site where I can get a bit of history / place it that would be great. I’ve tried to find old catalogues online but have so far failed. It's got a light mount on the forks, not sure if that is unusual or not.
Anyway, before I start to try to clean it up I thought it would be worth getting a little advice as I don’t want to damage the paint etc. Can someone please point me in the direction of the thread(s) about removing surface rust and general tips on how to clean up an old bike. I can only seem to find a couple and I’m sure there was a quite involved thread somewhere.
My dad was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, so if I can I’d really like to get this bike up and running again and do a sponsored ride on it to raise money for the hospice where he is being treated. The work they do is amazing and they run almost completely on donations so I’d like to help out as much as possible to keep them going - so they can support other families as much as they are supporting ours. I was thinking of getting it set up with some moustasche bars and sticking his old rack and panniers on too. A gentlemans bike if you will.
here are a couple of pics. Thanks very much.
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