"Courtesy Bicyclist Magazine, Petersen Publishing Company" and feaured in the June 1997 issue
Cycling is a boring sport, when it comes to bench racing. Ask any cyclist who was the best ever, and there can be only one answer: Eddy Merckx. They called Merckx "The Cannibal" for his insatiable winning appetite. In 14 seasons as a pro, the Belgian claimed 445 victories in 1582 starts. At his peak in 1971, Merckx took gold in 45 percent of his races! It is said other racers threatened to strike, fearing that if Merckx continued to race nothing would be left for them. Where most racing cyclists become known for certain kinds of races, such as Sean Kelly in one-day races and spring classics, Merckx put his stamp on everything. He won spring classics, major tours (five Tours de France and five Tours of Italy), three world championships and countless six-day races in the off-season.
Aside from his prowess as a cyclist, Merckx also earned a reputation as an equipment fanatic. There is a legend, confirmed by Merckx himself in Rik Vanwalleghem's excellent biography, Eddy Merckx, The Greatest Cyclist of the 20th Century, that the Belgian had once disassembled a bike to find out how many parts it had. When asked about it, Merckx replied, "I must have been mad. I did find out, though, that a bike is made up of around 1125 separate pieces." Merckx was said to have always had 35 bikes on hand-15 of them ready to ride-and he had hundreds of tires and wheels stored in his home. Merckx's wife, Claudine, herself the daughter of a professional cyclist, says in the Vanwalleghem biography, "It is a clich�, but Eddy was and is always obsessed with bikes. I've known him get [sic] out of bed in the middle of the night on more than one occasion and go into the garage to change something on his handlebar or his saddle or gears or something like that." '
When he retired in 1978, Merckx found himself with nothing to do. Stories from the period recount how Merckx was lost, and it wasn't till 1980 that Merckx was able to fill the void left by racing, when he started his bicycle company in his native Belgium. While the Cannibal's newest titanium models command a high wow factor, we opted to test a classic, the MX Leader, which sits at the top of the steel hierarchy in Merckx's stable. "It's the bike most of Eddy's sponsored pros ride, if they're on steel," said Sandy Nichols, spokesperson for Gita, Merckx's U.S. importer.
Improving a Legend
There are a few tubesets in Columbus' inventory that have achieved hallowed status, such as SLX for its rifled butting, or EL-OS for its incredibly thin .4-millimeter wall. But these tubes are commonplace. They are known to be good because almost everyone has ridden them, or at least knows someone who has. Their performance is documented and accepted as fact. But if you speak to a group of cyclists about Columbus Max tubing, there is rarely any certainty other than the fact that it is a tubeset possessing stature beyond others in the Columbus catalog. Like Bigfoot or the Lochness Monster, Max tubing is something everyone knows about but almost nobody has experienced, simply because most of us don't need it. Max is ridiculously oversized and ovalized, to the point where it's simply too stiff for most of us. But for heavy riders, especially those riding larger frames, it's just the ticket. It's this kind of stiffness that has endeared Max to countless professionals, especially the big sprinters.For most framebuilders, knowing Max is Columbus' big gun is enough. Have a large guy riding a 63-centimeter bike? Reach for the Max. But for Eddy Merckx, it had to be improved. Merckx had to have his own tubeset, tweaked to suit the rigors of stage racing and long one-day events for his sponsored pros. Our 58-centimeter test frame's tubes were massive-the down tube was 39 millimeters tall at the head tube, the seat tube and down tube were 37 and 40 millimeters, respectively, at the bottom bracket and the chainstays were a gigantic 36 millimeters tall.
Merckx doesn't wield his own torch, but his framesmiths would appear to adhere to the Cannibal's own high standards. Each lug's outline is crisply defined, the paint is smooth and the stickers are safely cocooned under a thick, protective clear coat. The frame is remarkably clean of any extraneous braze-ons. There's a front derailleur braze-on and two water bottle mounts, but that's it. There isn't even a chain hanger or a pump peg, two of the usual hallmarks of a pro frame.
The Cannibal's Geometry
In September 1969, Merckx suffered a debilitating crash during a motorpaced track race in Blois, France. His derny driver was killed, and Merckx injured his head and, more significantly, displaced some vertebrae in his back. Merckx said he was never the same afterward, that his back ached every time he was on his bike. It's for this reason that he was so obsessed with fit. In the classic Merckx video, La Course en Tete (The Head of the Field), there's a memorable scene where, just seconds before the start of a race, Merckx bums a wrench from a team car and makes an infinitesimally small saddle adjustment. Fit is an obsession he carries over to his professionals today. In this month's story on Andy Hampsten, teammate Alex Stieda recalls Merckx made the lanky American 20 bikes in a single month in an effort to get the fit just right. And while he obviously can't take such pains with buyers of off-the-shelf bikes, he has definite ideas about how bicycles should feel, and they're apparent in the geometry he uses. Company literature indicates that a 58-centimeter bike such as our test rig comes with a 57.3-centimeter top tube, 72.43-degree seat tube and 7.4 centimeters of bottom bracket drop. It's a laid-back geometry that carries with it a relaxed, casual demeanor. Merckx has never disclosed head tube angles, but our 58-centimeter bike measured out to a surprisingly steep 74 degrees. I say surprising not because it's especially steep (although it is definitely on the steep side of normal), but because it has straight-line stability and hands-off characteristics you'd normally find on a bike with a slacker head angle.The MX Leader has a wheelbase of just 98.5 centimeters, which is small for a bike of its size. The 41.5-centimeter chainstays are maybe a 12 centimeter long, which means the bottom bracket is a little closer to the front end, giving a more front-heavy weight bias. It's this short wheelbase, coupled with the stout pipes, that let the MX Leader descend like nobody's business. Point the bike downhill, aim it at a corner's apex and you'll sweep through in a magic arc. Those fat, aero-shaped Max fork blades do a terrific job of relaying tactile information from the hub to your hands, and with our stiff Vento wheelset there was no guesswork involved when it came to wondering how much grip the front tire had left in a corner. On smooth turns the rear end feels glued to the road, the wheel held exactly in plane with the frame and the bike describing precisely the arc you want to carve. As far as high-speed handling is concerned, it's hard to imagine a bike being much better than this. Merckx may have stopped racing almost two decades ago, but he obviously hasn't forgotten what the pros want in their bikes.
At 145 pounds soaking wet (maybe 150 with my shoes on and some spares stuffed in my jersey pockets), I'm far too light for this frame, but while everyone warned me the ride would be jarring, I didn't find it to be the case. Max is best suited to big riders, meaning frame sizes 60 centimeters and larger, or strong, heavy riders of 170 pounds or more. While my frame size is close to being within these parameters, my body type certainly isn't. Even so, I thought the Max rode well. It's not a plush cruiser, but it's not what I'd call harsh, either. It's Firm, with an underlying impression of solidity. On smooth pavement it's a magic carpet ride, and even on bad pavement it has good damping characteristics. It's only going over bigger bumps such as Botts dots that I found the frame a bit too stiff, and that's only because I got lofted out of the saddle. As a closet track fiend I can peel off the occasional sprint, and I can tell you that sprinting on a bike such as this is like a dream come true. Despite the lack of a chainstay bridge, the bottom bracket is firmly anchored within the frame, easily resisting the torque of winding up a big gear. Standing on the pedals on steep hills is equally rewarding, although the frame's 4-pound 12-ounce weight does conspire to give a feeling of enhanced gravity. There is a price for stiffness.
Despite the frame's considerable heft, our test bike built up to a very acceptable weight of 22 pounds 2 ounces, ready to go. That's not bad for a bike of this size, and it's testimony to the lightness of Campagnolo's Chorus group. The shifts are smooth and quiet, the indexing is spot on and the brakes are nothing short of phenomenal, with a solid, firm feel at the lever and easy one-finger modulation that should be the envy of every mountain biker negotiating a slippery descent.