So much has been written about the cannibal Eddy Merckx and that is normally because Eddy was the greatest, little chance that anyone will match his palmares ever.
Eddy has also built a successful career as a manufacturer of racing bikes with his own brand Eddy Merckx, although this has not been without a struggle and since 2017 the brand has been taken over by Ridley Bikes.
Foundation of Eddy Merckx bicycles
After his successful career, Eddy Merckx fell into a black hole, as is more common with sports people when they stop and it was thanks to his friend, frame builder and entrepreneur Ugo De Rosa that Eddy scrambled out of the black hole.
Eddy had known Ugo De Rosa for many years through his collaboration with Molteni where he built the bicycles for the cannibal. In a factory in Meise, Eddy's hometown, Ugo passed on his knowledge to Eddy's frame builders and soon the first Eddy Merckx brand racing bikes were ready.
The sponsoring of a cycling team started immediately, with none other than Patrick Lefevere as sports director. The modest Marc (Zeepcentrale) Vrd team achieved both small and big successes, for example 2 stages in the Tour de France were won: the 16th stage by Jos De Schoenmaecker and the 18th stage by Ludo Loos.
The same year Eddy Merckx also sponsored the IWC-Imex team for which Patrick Sercu drove. However, little information can be found about this. Extra information is therefore welcome.
In 1982 the cycling team Capri Sonne with sports director Walter Godefroot and assistant sports director Patrick Lefevere, was sponsored and here too victories were booked, the most important were Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne by Gregor Braun and the 17th stage in the Tour de France by Peter Winnen.
Other cycling teams soon followed, such as the Spanish Kelme, Europe Decor – Boule d'Or, Panasonic, TV magazine – Perlav, Hitachi, 7 eleven, Motorola, Domo – Farm Frites, Quick Step.
So many well-known riders who rode an Eddy Merckx bicycle: Eric Vanderaerden, Patrick Sercu, Eddy Planckaert, Claude Criquelion, Andy Hampsten, Lance Armstrong, Chris Boardman, Johan Museeuw, Richard Virenque, and so on.
You can find all cycling teams that Eddy Merckx ever sponsored on the following link> all teams that rode with Eddy Merckx bicycles
In 2008 Eddy Merckx sold most of his shares. In 2017, Eddy Merckx Cycles was finally taken over by Ridley Bikes, merging the two companies into one new group, called “Belgian Cycling Factory”. A new logo was also chosen immediately.
Main steel vintage Eddy Merckx racing bikes
We are not talking about aluminum or titanium bicycles here and certainly not about carbon bicycles, but about the classic steel bikes. Below you will find the most important and most sought after Eddy Merckx bicycles for collectors. We will return to these models later in separate articles.
- Eddy Merckx Corsa Extra: this was the top model and was used by the professional riders
- Eddy Merckx Corsa
- Eddy Merckx Strada
- Eddy Merckx Criterium
- Eddy Merckx Century TSX
- Eddy Merckx Grand Prix
- Eddy Merckx Corsa Extra 10th anniversary
Cheap bikes with decals from Eddy Merckx
Many bicycles have also been made with decals from Eddy Merckx with a portrait of the champion. Most of those bikes were even in Molteni orange. These bikes were not made in the Eddy Merckx factory and came on the market when Eddy was still cycling.
In other words, he lent (not for free of course 😉) his name to a few bicycle manufacturers: Dangre – Starnord from Valenciennes, Falcon Cycles in England and Kessels from Ostend.
Only Kessels from Ostend made high-quality Merckx bicycles (more info about the collaboration between Eddy Merckx and Kessels). Both others sold Merckx bicycles from a lower to very low level, equipped with components from the cheaper class.
At that time there were even children's racing bikes with Eddy Merckx decals on the market.
You can clearly see that the above bicycle is a very ordinary bicycle, yet buyers sometimes get caught and some sellers also think that they have a real valuable Eddy Merckx bicycle in their hands. Sometimes you even come across an ad stating that the cannibal rode it himself 😀
A very good website where you get an explanation on how to identify an Eddy Merckx frame and find out which model and from what year the bike is, is www.cadre.org/Merckx/. You will also find plenty of photos of Eddy Merckx bicycles.
New steel Eddy Merckx bicycles
For a few years now, new Eddy Merckx steel bicycles have been brought onto the market by Belgian Cycling Factory, these are bicycles made of high-quality steel that has much better properties than the previous types of steel.
For the cannibal's 70th birthday, a new steel model called the Eddy70 was launched. Only 70 copies were made and the bicycle refers to the year 1969 when Eddy rode for Faema. The bicycle therefore has a retro look in the typical white and red colors of Faema but with modern components.
Below the promo video when the bike came out. The bike costs € 14,000
In 2019, Oliver Naesen rode a steel Eddy Merckx Corsa Road Rim, the last stage of the Tour de France arriving on the Champs-Elysées.
