Originally Posted by
himespau
CyclesMakaron , I was a bit confused by one of your earlier posts where you said that a code meant that a Corsa Extra had Century geometry. There's a very good chance I misunderstood or read a faulty source, but I thought I'd read somewhere that there Eddy Merckx bikes of that era had 1 of 2 geometries: either the more relaxed century or the more aggressive road race and that the Corsa Extra (and later the Max) had the road race geometry and most other models like the Professional had the century geometry. I'd also thought that I had read that the main difference between the Titanium EX and AX in the 2nd half of the 90's was that the EX had road race geometry while the AX had century.
Am I misunderstanding or misremembering what I read? Could any of the bikes have either of the geometries? Were there more than 2 geometry options?
OK, one step at a time:
- the original geometry (aggressive) of EMC bicycles is "road racing geo", all frames built before the Century model have it (except Criterium - that is, more or less until the summer of 1988).
- Century model introduced a new geometry (relax) that is just "century geo", it was used as the only one in Century models (653 and TSX), Corsa Extra Max, Mx Leader, Arcobaleno, Corsa Thron, Corsa 01, Strada OS and titanium AX, EX, Titane EM and early alu.
- unusual frames are: Strada produced until 1996 exclusively in "road racing geo" and Corsa Extra (SLX) and Corsa (SL), which were built in both geometries! Hence, the X and C markings apply to "road racing geo," and the XB and CB markings apply to "century geo."
Reynolds tubular frames did not have markings distinguishing the geometry, but all indications are that the Grand Prix model had a "road racing geo", there were Corsa Extra 653 (same geometry) - I have not found a Corsa 531 in this geometry so far (the marking should look like this: CRB).
- the biggest difference between the AX and EX is the use of profiled tubes in the latter. I don't think the AX used any Ti 6/4 parts, while the EX had BB covers and fork/dropouts.