Angel,
The bikes ridden by the Faema team in 1968 indeed bore Faema decals, rather than Eddy Merckx decals, from what I've seen. At the back of the glossy but indifferently researched Campagnolo 75th Anniversary book is a photo of Adorni winning the '68 World RR on a Faema decaled bike. The famous Tre Cime stage in the snow was also '68 - by '69, the bikes were badged "Eddy Merckx," AFAIK. There are a few photos from the Eddy-tribute Cycle Sport issue of several years ago that also show that Eddy was on a "Faema" decaled bike on the Tre Cime - they're blurry enough because of the conditions in which that stage was ridden that you kind of have to look closely to realize this. Eddy's bike on that stage also appears to have sidepulls, which were presumably Universal '68's, indicating these were available before the Campagnolo sidepulls debuted at the end of that season (and as seen in the Campagnolo book photo of Adorni). This appears to undercut the common assumption that the Univerasal 68's followed Campagnolo's lead rather than the other way around.
Ed Granger Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA
______________________________________________________________________________ I've been looking through Gazzetta dello Sport's 100th anniv. Giro book and there is a great photo of Eddy Merckx riding a bike with F on the headtube and seattube panel; the F has above what would appear to be the shape of a cathedral (like Albero Masi uses representing the Doumo of Milano). I'm 95% sure the downtube says FAEMA. It's a black and white photo in which the bike is all white with the exception of the headtube and seatube panel. There is no date attributed to the photo but the caption says, in Italian, "Eddy Merckx winning the Gorizia-Tre Cime di Lavaredo stage".
I then hit the archives and found a couple of references to 1969 Faema bikes, and made by Masi. Interesting.
The book has hundreds of photos. Anyone interested in Giro history should
order one from the publisher, see COMMENTS (don't know if available
elsewhere):
http://italiancyclingjournal.blogspot.com/
Angel Garcia
Long Valley, NJ