rjhammett

verktyg 

M branded bare frames in the cue for building (for a long time).

1976 Mercian Olympic



Early 80's Mercier Columbus SL tubing



1974 Motobecane Le Champion



1980 Motobecane Team Champion respray



Motobecane bikes

1971 Motobecane Grand Record



1972 Motobecane Le Champion eBay pic



1974 Motobecane Grand Jubile



1980 Motobecane Grand Jubile



1982 Motobecane Team Champion



I also have a mid 70's Mondia Special and a 1985 Eddy Merckx.

verktyg

kross57

Mid-70s Motobecane Nomade Sprint.

kross57

Miyata 710 1985.

Road Fan

First off is another Masi, this one is built at Rancho, possibly by Lippy or Ted Kirkbride. It may have been a custom considering the fender eyes and downtube decals.

Next up is my first Mondonico, a 52 mm frame, built up as I rode it from about 1998 through about 2015. I bought it about 1986 from a grad student in Denver who had wanted to race it in his spare time. He bought it new in Boulder, possibly from Vecchio's. The build as I got it was full Shimano 600 6207 2x7 friction shifted, with Mavic MA-40 clincher rims. They carried Conti Super Sport tires in 23 mm width, certainly upper end performance/training clinchers of the day. The Columbus sticker does not have any tubing designators on it, so it was either a leftover in Mondonico's shop, from before they used designators, or it was built as a tubing mix to suit Mondonico's preference or the importer's preference. I never liked the 600 derailleurs so I replaced them with Nuovo Record. Within the gear ranges of the time they worked as I expected, where the Shimanos did not. But in Colorado I did not warm up to the bike. I tried to bequest it to my wife, but the road-race handling did not suit her.

After we moved to Michigan I decided to rebuild and "blueprint" the bike with cold-setting, frame/fork alignment, and indexing - if I still didn't like it, it was going up for sale despite the "garage genius" aura of Mondonico. I refitted it for long rides in the rolling country hills of SE Michigan, with Record 53/39/30 triple and 13/29 cassette, a Racing Triple setup for it, custom Campy/Sapim CX/GP-4 wheels, a Stronglight A9, and Challenge 27 mm Parigi-Roubaix tubulars. I also cleaned and touched up the silver paint and waxed the frame. The bike came out in the beautiful shape you see here. The new wheels, cold-setting and frame alignment resulted in excellent handling and even a responsive but compliant ride - this is what Mondonico meant by "stage-race response and handling!" Loved it. I rode it a lot is SE Michigan - several metric centuries and many 45-mile loops on the roads between Ann Arbor, MI and Lansing, MI.

On one of our MUP rides Mrs. Road Fan yelled out "Look at the buck!" and I did, but I stayed on the path at that point. As I passed where the buck had entered the bike path I looked down the deer path to see if there were does following the buck. The road curved left and I did not! I had a 16 mph frontal collision with a, pile of river boulders which kinked the top and down tubes. My helmet was cracked in many places, but no concussion - Hurray for Giro! I walked the bike to the nearest town. I had the tubes replaced by Matt Assenmacher. He selected lighter tubes (per my request) and rebuilt it with less front-center (not my request) and the best set of decals he could find. I just finished re-assembling and tuning it all up - now it has the same Stronglight A9 headset, Veloce Ergopowers, a Chorus medium-cage 10 s rear mech, and a Centaur 50/34 Ultratorque chainset. I first built it with a Record 53/39 on a Record 102mm BB, but I wanted the deeper granny of the 50/34. The weight of the all-aluminum Compact is the same as the square-taper Record. Pedals are now MKS AW1 road platforms with toeclips/straps, replacing the Campy C-Record Strada that were on it. It took some work to get this all to work smoothly, because 50/34 with 13/29 rear is at the stated limit of the Campagnolo mid-reach derailleurs. With just a few short rides I can say it pedals very easily and climbs our short hill well, but the steering is quite quick. At the moment the tires are 21 mm Gommitalia Espresso tubulars, which seem to be latex and sit on the rim evenly and securely at 105 psi. I used Jantex tape to mount them. The frame should still clear 27 mm Parigi-Roubaix tubulars, but I'm not sure about 28's. The P-R tubulars are true to their stated width, and you still don't know what you'll get with clinchers. I need to add a "now" picture - I think with Assenmacher's paint and the all-silver build it's quite classic and nice. Oh, and I lost the black threadless stem you can see in the photo!

I don't have any good pictures of my 2005 Mondonico Futura Leggero ELOS handy at the moment, but I'll add them when I find them. I bought it while the other Mondonico was "laid up," from a private party who advertised on Paceline, fully built and ready to be fitted and ridden. What's technically interesting in this one is the ELOS tubeset. Columbus' strongest steel alloy Nivachrome, first over size diameters, and butting profiles something like .7-.4-.7 mm. Also it's a monostrut frame, so the brake bridge is like fork crown joining the two seatstays into a single strut that rises to join the seat lug. The most aggressive rides on it were along the Niagara River trails from Niagara-On-The-Lake, ON up-river nearly to Niagara Falls, ON, roughly a 35 mile loop and a 700 foot climb, if I recall correctly. With a compact and 13-26 it was wonderful - if any bike I have planes, it's this one.

Rounding out this set is not another M frame, but my 1980 Woodrup Giro set up for sport-touring: rear rack, 2x7 friction shifting, Conti Sprinters, Selle Anatomica saddle. As far as I can tell it is made from standard diameter Reynolds 531 with most likely the 8-5-8 TT and DT, .9-.6 seat tube. Good road compliance and some planing. It's ok with a small front bag - I cobbled on a Sunlight aluminum rack for the Northern Michigan supported tour and did two metrics in two consecutive days. I now have a taste for longer rides, but I need to start building through to next Spring! This picture is from about 2010, before I rebuilt it with a Racing Triple 3x7 with friction shifting, to better handle northern Michigan hills. This wheelset used the Shimano 600-6207 freewheel hubset from the original Mondonico build, and added a set of silver Sun CR-18 rims to house 32 mm wired-on Paselas. Those wheels are now on my Trek 610. With plastic fenders that's as large of a tire as I wanted to go, but without fenders it could most likely accept 38 mm tires. Always a smooth ride, we took her out on the Michigan paths a number of times. It rides great, shimmies a lot while descending with a rack trunk, not at all with a good-sized rear bag, and just a bit with the Sunlight rack and an old Rhode Gear front bag. I sold the frame to BF's Chris Wilson who enjoyed it well for several years, then he sold the frame, fork, and headset back to me a year or so back. Next build will involve going to indexed shifting, and attention to the frame: seatpost clamping, paint patching or upgrading, and then we'll see if it can become a randonneuse, perhaps taking the components from my Terraferma. I think I like 700c better than 650b.





1980 Masi GC


1984 (or so) Mondonico, Columbus tubing, tubulars, Campy 3x10.


Just for fun, 1980 Woodrup Giro

clubman 

64 Moulton



Circa 1930 Massey Harris Silver Ribbon and my crank Avatar

mpetry912 

"M" they said

Mark Petry
Bainbridge Island, WA USA

Choke 

Magni Olimpiade (built by Losa) from around 1978-80. Those are 18mm tires in the pics.







1985 Corsa Extra with Zeus New Racer

non-fixie 

Our favorite Merciers.

Hers:



Mine:



Errm ...

JimR56

Very nice! I would love to know the dates of manufacture on those three, if you know. The down tube logo on the white bike is apparently a transitional design which I've had a hard time trying to date (maybe '73 or '74?). But the examples of that logo which I've seen were on U.S. imports. The "Special Sport" marking is also something I haven't encountered very often in my photo searches.

Your brown one would be around 1976-77, perhaps? The color on the mixte is lovely. We didn't get that color on Merciers over here!

I invite you to join in and help share any knowledge in my Mercier topic, if you're interested: 50 years later, another Mercier

chico81 

As per Tom Kellogg, it was built in July of 1991

P!N20

Excellent. I haven't been sleeping well due to the lack of Mercians in the M thread.

merziac

P!N20

Well thank Merckx for that.

Andy Antipas 

1992 Masi 3V Barcelona and 1987 Marinoni Special

P!N20

Oh my. Can we talk 8 speed Record DT shifters?

Andy_K 

Better later than never?

1975 Motobecane Grand Jubilé avec Gugificazione



1972 Motobecane Grand Record (slightly less Gugified)

Lascauxcaveman 

Merckx Corsa Extra 86/87 by the serial number. C-Record everything, of course!







(Well not everything. Is there such thing as C-Record pedals, or freewheels? I'll have to look that up.)

P!N20

...or Monoplaners?

C-Rec pedals: https://velobase.com/ViewComponent.as...5220f&Enum=109

Lascauxcaveman 

Ah, yes. I could probably live with those, provided I could find straps long enough to accommodate my great fat pumpkin stompin' feet. I've been using some triangular 105 pedals on my weight-weenie Technium, and they are OK.

I thought the Monoplanars were the official addition to the C-Record gruppo after they finally (finally!) gave up on the Deltas. Admittedly, my knowledge of Campiness is a bit short of authoritative.

P!N20

Don't think so, Monoplaners have only ever been Chorus or Athena. They persisted with the Deltas until the dual pivot Record calipers came along in '94/'95. Although it's worth noting around 1990 they dropped the 'C' and the top end stuff just became 'Record'.

JimR56

Is bicycle lust a thing? Because I think it's happening to me right now.

verktyg 

Thanks guys, she's a beaut! I'd been lusting for a Mercian Vincitore since the 70's then this 1976 Olympic frame came along.

Only minor scratches, no dings or any other damage. The blue and white stands out and the lug lining is great.





verktyg

top506

Top

non-fixie 

Of course. Disguised as an Altra, but definitely a Méral: