Kessels Merckx road bicycle, A story by C.P.

Kessels Merckx Bicycle, A story by C.P.
New York City

Here is what I know about Kessels from personal experience.

Kessels Merckx A story Retro steel bike — Kessels Merckx Bicycle, A story by C.P.

My first 10-speed bike was a St-Etienne, a sort of Gitane clone, in 1971. The next year my uncle in Belgium wrote me and said he could get a good deal on a racing bike from a friend of his, was I interested? It would cost about $125. I said sure, sounds interesting. So he brings this Eddy Merckx. First off, it's much too small for me. It has Simplex derailleurs, Weinmann sidepulls, and the frame, although it's made using Bocama lugs and has pretty tight geometry (for those days) is obviously common steel, with stamped dropouts. But it had Nisi rims and sew-ups, very exciting, although the hubs are Atoms with wingnuts. A bike for a beginner racer in Belgium, in other words. In terms of performance, it's light-years ahead of 99% of the bikes in town, but for an American teenager just getting into the Bike Boom, it's a bit disappointing. The quest for a longer seatpost is what led me to Thomas Avenia's old shop in Spanish Harlem, on 116th street. What a dungeon! He tells me there are two sizes of Campagnolo seat posts, 27.2 and 26.8. I take a guess at the larger size, which of course proves way too big. My father takes it on his next visit to a merchant ship and has the on-board machine-shop take it down on a lathe. That was a fun bike, got me used to tight racing gears and glueing on tubulars, and that Molteni orange sure stood out.

The next year, 1973, I went back to the Old Country, Belgium. My uncle promised to hook me up with his friend, mr. Kessels, who happened to be an old army buddy. The shop in Ostend was where the offices were, but also where bikes were assembled; the frames were built at another location, in a small village in the countryside. (possibly Gistel?) Kessels was the company name, but they had bought the rights to the names of several defunct racing marques, Alcyon and Main D'Or most notably, and sold their bikes under those names. They had been making bikes for Merckx since 1971, and they had recently secured the contract for Belgium and Holland, to sell bikes under the Eddy Merckx name. As was common in those days, the shop had no bikes for sale, just some floor models; you ordered the actual bike and it was made for you in a couple of weeks. My uncle took me to see his friend, who I believe was the younger brother of the founder. As a joke, I had brought a Schwinn catalog to show him. He was a bit puzzled by the Varsity, but his verdict on the Paramount was quick: "looks nice, but a bit old-fashioned, don't you think?" He showed me two frames: the basic semi-pro model, which had Reynolds 531 main tubes and Suntour dropouts, with solid but basic workmanship, and the top-of-the-line model, full Reynolds with Campy dropouts, cutout bottom bracket and very nice finish work, including a beautifully done semi-wrapover seat cluster. He was obviously very proud of it. He explained that his builder was inspired by the simple lines and tight geometry of the newer Italian bikes, Masi, Colnago, Poghliaghi etc..

I explained to him that my budget was limited to $350. He said "No problem, I will put together something nice, a top frame with parts that are OK but that you can upgrade later. Come back in two weeks." In those two weeks another uncle managed to get me into the team car of a minor professional team for a "kermesse" race in the countryside, the coach was an army buddy as well (that's one of the benefits of universal, compulsory military service, you make a lot of connections) that was eye-opening. I decided that racing was not for me. Also, I visited another builder/retailer, in Ghent. Plum Vainqueur was the name, they sponsored one of the teams I had seen. They offered me a nice full-Reynolds all-Zeus equipped bike for $350. It was impressive, but very old-fashioned compared to the Kessels bikes, with fancy chromed lugs and Cinelli-style fork crown. At the end of two weeks, I went back to Kessels to take a look. My bike was in the back of a van; it had just come back from the test ride. Turns out that every racing bike they build gets a spin on the local track.

The Kessels company was fairly large for Belgium, not as large as Flandria but not a small boutique either. They sold the full range of bikes, from single-speed town bikes to racing, all made to order for the local market, although they obviously mass-produced stuff for export and especially for re-branding. In those days it was still the custom for bike shops to sell bikes under their name, a hold-over from the days not so long ago when they actually built them. In fact, the traditional name for bike shop in Flanders was "Velo-Maaker", bicycle builder. I remember seeing a stack of primed, unpainted frames in Kessels' truck, probably destined for the house brand market.

When I finally got a look at it, the frame was slightly different from either of the ones he had shown me. It had the great workmanship of the top model, but the sticker said Reynolds main tubes (and fork) only. (An American frame builder told me years later that the rear triangle tubing was probably Ishiwata or Tange chrome-molybdenum). The Campy dropouts were chromed, with eyelets. The fork had reinforcing tangs on the inside (wheel side) of the blades, like the semi-pro model, but chromed Campy tips without eyelets. The frame had two large circular cutouts in the bottom bracket, and no braze-ons except for the rear derailleur cable stop. The inside of the right rear chainstay was chromed.

From my research, now suspect the frame was a left-over 1972 model, perhaps one that was never picked up.

Per my request, he had used only European components. Kessels was quite a fan of Japanese components even back then, he thought the price/quality ratio was excellent. This made sense, because in Europe at the time it was not considered necessary for every beginner racer to have a full-Campagnolo Colnago, unlike in the US at the time. Kids started racing on quite modest bikes, and concentrated on the craft and the training, not on the latest equipment. But this attitude towards the Japanese leads me to believe that he may have been using Tange tubing on at least some of the semi-pro frames. Anyway, my bike had TA Professional cranks, Huret Jubilee derailleurs, Weinmann 500 sidepulls, Nisi rims and Tipo low flange hubs. Over the years I ended up replacing everything, but I noticed that the items that I never needed to replace (except by choice) were the ones where the bike came in contact with my body: Cinelli bars and stem, Cinelli saddle, Maillard pedals. It was a very comfortable bike from the beginning, even though it was also stiffer than anything else I'd ever ridden.

Kessels explained that he had given me the best frame possible, and judiciously economized on the components so as to meet my budget. I could always upgrade later. It was a beautiful bicycle, very elegant and modern-looking for its time. I still have it, much modified towards the touring side. The only thing that was disappointing was the paint job; it flaked and chipped very quickly, and I ended up having it repainted by a local frame-builder who also added braze-ons for levers and racks. I was tired of the Molteni orange, and chose blue, but got original decals from Belgium to finish it off.

A year later, at the 1974 New York bike show, Falcon displayed a bike that had been ridden by Merckx in 1971 or so. It looked authentic, being the right frame size and pretty beat up. The frame was identical to my Kessels in nearly every detail; the exceptions were these: no chrome or eyelets on the dropouts, and three circular holes in the bottom bracket instead of two. It was obviously a Kessels bike. The next year the bike they displayed was the World Championship bike, and I believe it was a De Rosa.

Recently I asked my uncle what had happened to Kessels. Turns out his friend died
a while ago, and the family closed up shop about 20 years ago.

*****

Fernand Kessels himself was a businessman, not a builder. He hired frame builders to make his frames, and it certainly looks like there was a change in design philosophy around 1974, possibly reflecting a change in the actual frame builders, with Vaneenoghe starting in 1974. There is a chance that the builder Merckx mentioned as being responsible for the 1969 FAEMA bikes, "Marcel van der Este", worked for Kessels at some point. Daniel Rebour, in his illustrated article about Merckx's 1969 TDF bike, mentions that it was built by "Ets. Kessels Ostende", directly contradicting Merckx. What I'm guessing is that Merckx, wanting to equip his entire FAEMA team with modern bikes, and finding Masi (which he had used personally in 1968) either too expensive or unable to fulfill his order, hired Van Der Este on a freelance basis, and had Kessels paint and assemble the bikes. From there they ended up in the workshop of the FAEMA team mechanic, Chales Terryn.
Where Marcel Orlans fits into this I don’t know.

It seems, from recent information, that the 1974~76 Kessels professional frames were made by a small custom builder, Vaneenooghe.

What's interesting is that Kessels, after securing the license to use Eddy's name on his bikes, sold an entire range of Eddy Merckx branded bikes, from toddler's bikes with training wheels, folding bikes, men's and ladies' town bikes, semi-pro racing bikes, all the way up to professional racing bikes that were identical to the Molteni team bikes. There was quite a bit of variability in frame design.

When I visited the Kessels shop in 1973, I was shown a variety of pro and semi-pro frames, and the construction details varied. The semi-pro frames I was shown had domed seat stays and bulge-formed tops, with fork blade reinforcements, and used Reynolds 531 DB tubes in the main frame tubes only, with Suntour dropouts. The pro bikes had the semi-wrapover stays with flat ends, no fork reinforcements, Campy dropouts and full Reynolds 531 tube sets. The bike I actually received had a mix of these features, plus chrome tips, which I had not seen on any of the samples, although mr. Kessels did show me a bike built for his daughter, which was fully chromed. Here's pic of mine as it was in 1973.

vintage Kessels Merckx belgium race bike, A story by C.P. — Kessels Merckx Bicycle, A story by C.P.

Kessels Merckx A story Retro race bicycles — Kessels Merckx Bicycle, A story by C.P.

Kessels Merckx A story Vintage racing bikes — Kessels Merckx Bicycle, A story by C.P.

Kessels Merckx A story Classic race bikes — Kessels Merckx Bicycle, A story by C.P.

Daniel Rebour on the 1969 TDF bike:

Kessels Merckx A story Retro classic bicycles — Kessels Merckx Bicycle, A story by C.P.

In 1977 Eddy joined the FIAT team and rode a mix of Kessels and De Rosa bikes. The next year it was C&A and he quit early on; the bikes were De Rosa, possibly assembled by Kessels. Fernand Kessels kept the license for the Eddy Merckx name after that, but he died in 1979, and soon afterwards Eddy went into business for himself, with De Rosa's help. When I visited the Kessels shop in 1980, they were closing up, and could not give me any Eddy Merckx decals, although mrs. Kessels personally gave me a silver factory decal.