Originally Posted by Stoker10

I had a very nice Meral from about 1974. It was built of very light Super Vitus 971 tubing with Simplex dropouts and high-end French parts. It had a Stronglight 93 crankset, Simplex Super L.J. derailleurs, Stronglight headset, highly-polished AVA stem and bars, Mafac "Competition" centerpulls, a Stronglight alloy seatpost with an Ideale 2002 saddle. Wheels were laced on high-flange Maillard 700 "Professional" hubs. There were no braze-ons; everything was clamp-on. I rode it for many years and even raced on it, but finally it developed a fatal crack where the seat tube went into the bottom bracket lug. It was my impression that Meral was a French builder, not German, and were noted for better-than-average machines. I have an old catalog here that lists an address in Savigne-sur-Lathan, France, which is near Tours. If I can come up with some pictures or scan the catalog, I'll post them here.