Author: Mercury

Looking For Information On Kessels

Kessels was a Belgian bicycle manufacturer (I say was because my internet searches have not come up with any evidence that the company still exists).

They are probably best known amongst classic cycle enthusiasts for making bikes for Eddy Merckx and for making Eddy Merckx branded bikes in the 1970s – some of which were high-end racing bikes, generally well thought of (I shall be adding one to this site) and some distinctly low-end bikes too.

But information on the company is hard to come by.  I would be really pleased if someone out there can give me any information on the company – who started it and when; where they were located; what their production volume was; scans of catalogues; anything.

Just about all I have discovered is that it was owned by a man called Kessels and the company acquired the Alcyon and Main d’Or brands and made Eddy Merckx bikes.  Not a lot.

Bicycle Collection – or not

I do not describe myself as a bicycle collector because that implies conducting a series of deliberate actions to acquire specific machines.  My accumulation of bicycles did not happen that way – I just acquired bicycles that resonated with me in a particular way and I have kept them so long as that resonance was there and I have disposed of a few when it faded.

I have also made the mistake of buying bikes because they were considered by others to be desirable – a Hetchins which I couldn’t get rid of soon enough; a Cinelli Super Corsa which was beautiful but left me cold; a couple of Gillotts, nice to look at and nice to ride but we just didn’t connect; a Carlton Flyer track the same.  But others enthuse about those bikes and rightly so – bicycles are a very personal thing and I expect many of you not to think particularly highly of the machines that I have accumulated.

My hope is that this site will develop into one with something for all enthusiasts of classic factory lightweight bicycles – I will steadily add my own bikes and then start adding other people’s so that we get a good cross-section of the world’s great bikes.

Stay tuned and please give me your comments on this site, good and bad, so that I can try to make it better.

 

Welcome

Welcome to my new website devoted to the great classic factory lightweight bicycles that have provided so much pleasure and good racing over the years.  My particular passion is for factory replicas of the bikes ridden to victory in the Tour de France and I seem to have accumulated several without actually setting out to do so.  Their details will be added to this site:

  • Frejus SuperCorsa (Ferdie Kubler – 1950)
  • Helyett Speciale (Jacqes Anquetil – 1957, 1961, 1962)
  • Eddy Merckx Molteni (Eddy Merckx – 1971, 1972, 1974)
  • Motobecane Bic Team (Luis Ocana – 1973)
  • Peugeot PY10 (Bernard Thevenet – 1975, 1977)
  • Gitane (Lucien Van Impe – 1976; Bernard Hinault – 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982)
  • Raleigh (Joop Zoetemelk – 1980)

That list indicates that I have got the years 1971 through 1982 fairly well covered.  Admittedly there were some specification changes over the yearts so that my bikes are not 100% representative of every one, but I have only shown the years for which the specifications were fairly similar – for example, Laurent Fignon won theTour in 1983 on a Gitane, but by then the spec had moved on from the bikes riden by Van Impe and Hinault, so I have not included his victory.  I cheated a bit with Anquetil because my bike is a 1959 model with cable operated Simplex LJ23 front shifter.  In 1957, Anquetil was using a rod operated front shifter and in 1961 and 1962 he had moved on to Simplex’ new parallelogram rear derailleur, the JuyRecord 61, from the Simplex 543 model fitted to my bike.  The ads even say that in 1962 he rode some stages with Simplex’ new Delrin Prestige rear derailleur.