Product Description
The Merckx Professional is the one many pro racers rode to victory throughout the 80's! It was built in Eddy's own factory (Eddy opened his workshop in 1980; before then Merckx branded frames were built by Masi, Colnago, Falcon, Pela, Kessels, etc). The Pro is quite the prestigious frame, and is more scarce than the Merckx Corsa and MX Leader.
This one has been restored by Cycle Art of San Marcos, CA. The paint is nothing short of dreamy. A deep and highly dimensional candy purple main color is accented by pearly white panels and colorful Merckx logos. The painted downtube logos are a work of art. Slightly raised and brilliantly white, with a faint and thin gold outline.
The rear dropout spacing is 130mm, allowing modern drivetrains! This is designed for 8 speed drivetrains, all the way up through current year 11 speed. It has bosses for downtube shifters, which currently have Campagnolo Ergo downtube cable stop adapters on them. (fits either downtube shifters or STI/Ergo/Double-tap drivetrains)
*I have all the parts you would need to build this up in numberous ways! 8 speed Campagnolo, 10 speed Dura Ace, or frankenbike. Feel free to ask me about a build package!
Sizing
The frame is a 60c (c-c), and will fit riders roughly 6ft 1 to 6ft 5.
- Seat tube: 60cm (c-c), 61cm (c-t). 61cm is the official size, via serial number.
- Top tube: 58.5cm
Condition
Overall, lovely great used condition with some paint issues (2nd paragraph). ZERO cracks, dents, bends, or damage. The previous owner told me it was a fairly recent respray, and most of the frame shows that with a brilliant and clean finish. All logos are pristine. White panels are nearly perfect. Underside of the chainstays only have one paint chip. Underside of the BB shell and downtube are very clean with no gravel chips! Front triangle and fork are very glossy and look amazing, with the exception of what's mentioned in the next paragraph. The lovely condition of these main tubes is kind of odd considering the paint blemishes mentioned in the next paragraph. This leads me to believe the chips/touchups are more from rough storage/handling than hard riding. No, it's not a pristine show bike finish. But, if you want to ride this you'll barely notice the paint blemishes once you get hypnotized by the amazing work Cycle Art did on this paintjob.
There are some paint issues (also see captions on photos in expanded view). The most obvious is a smattering of chips and scratches on the chainstays. They're not horrible, but they're visible enough. The next thing you'll notice is a 1cm touch up on the top of the top tube, just behind the forward cable port. This one doesn't look too bad unless you're looking for it. The real paint issues are hidden on the underside of the top tube. There's a large ~2" touched up area close to the headtube, and a smaller ~1" area near the seat tube. Luckily these aren't visible from looking at the bike straight on, you have to be under the top tube level to notice them. The previous owner told me these were decent size paint chips that were made to look even worse by his first attempts at touchup paint.
Details
- Serial number: 1 - P - 3238 - Z ("1" indicates last digit of the frame size, "P" indicates model of Professional, "Z" indicates year of 1985 or late 1984, "3238" may indicate chronological frame number) Click here for Merckx frame number decoding.
- Material: Most likely Columbus SL (not rifled, so it's not SLX)
- Seatpost size: 27.2mm
- BB threads: Italian
- Rear spacing: 130mm
