Thinking about Eddy Merckx's factory and legend got me thinking about why there isn't a rich history of bicycle builders in Belgium. Beyond Eddy there's Roger DeVlaeminck, Lucien VanEmpe, Freddy Maertens, and Johan Museeuw just to name a few. Belgium eats, breathes, and lives cycling as a country. I would imagine the Ardennes in the southern third of the country (Wallonia) would have followed their French connection in cycle building as they have with language and cuisine. The north of Belgium (Flanders) is more closely connected to The Netherlands and Germany. Though neither of these countries may have as strong a bicycle industry history as France, they do still have a long tradition of bicycle manufacturing.
So does anyone have a good list of Belgian bike and parts makers
through time? We already know about Titan bars, stems, and posts;
Eddy's company, and maybe Flandria. I find it hard to believe that a
country that is as, if not more, passionate about cycling than any
other in Europe had so few bike and parts manufactures. Any country
that shows any major race on 7 different channels in 5 different
languages, and has large pull-out sections in most papers for every
stage of Le Tour is REALLY into cycling. If you'd like to see some
front pages of non-cycling publications that are full of cycling check
out:
http://www.hetvolk.be/