Well Peter and I, the usual defenders of all things French, some of which are admittedly downright weird, seem to find ourselves in basic disagreement with the Omnipotent Despot on this one. I admit much of the appeal of the Mercier is somewhat tied to Poulidor et al, but so is the mystique of Celeste Bianchis tied to Coppi.
Not sure how to respond to the "featureless" thing. Merciers weren't heavily pantagraphed, but neither were other French bikes of the era. Actually, some later Merciers, like one in a photo posted today, had a rather cool crown logo engraved in the fork crown. Dale has no doubt seen more Merciers than I, but the ones I have seen seem no more or less distinctive and no more or less sloppy than any equivalent Peugeot, Gitane, LeJeune or Motobecane of the same era. They are in the French style of time, which one can either like or not, but it is hard for me to see how one can like one of the French marques but not another, aside from the graphics or the exploits of the teams most of them sponsored.
As I think someone said, these bikes were made to be ridden, not just for appearance, and a few of us think that they ride better than the Italian or British bikes of the time, probably because we personally like the ride characteristics produced my metric-gauge Reynolds 531 tubesets.
Now the original post which started this was a query as to whether an unidentified pink bike was a Mercier, which I believe it most definitely was not, and whether a pink Mercier ever one the TdF. As to the second, we have concluded that the Mercier team as such never won, although two riders, Bobet and Lapebie, were members of the Mercier team the year they won, but both rode for the French national team in the Tour itself. Also LeDucq, who twice won under the national team setup, was long sponsored by Mercier, though it is not clear if that was true in his winning years. It has been proven by photos that Bobet's Tour victory in 1955 when he was sponsored by Mercier was on a Bobet-badged frame. So if a Mercier ever did win the TdF it was under LeDucq or Lapebie between 1930 amd 1937. A European member opined offlist that it is highly unlikely that a TdF rider in the 30's or even 50's would have ridden pink Mercier. According to him, at that time males wearing pink or riding pink bikes were viewed with as much suspicion in Europe as in America, so no Tour rider would have used a pink bike in that era. I wouldn't know about that as I've never lived in Europe, and even I am not old enough to remember the 30's. It seems the Italians were an exception as they had the maglia rosa very early in the 20th century, but perhaps that was just an icon that transcended ordinary convention - after all one of the stories about the origin of Bianchi Celeste is that it was the color of the Italian queen's underwear, not exactly a macho image.
In any case, I'll be interested to see if Aldo or anyone else dredges up photos of the 1930, 1932 and 1937 Tour winners on their bikes, Mercier or otherwise. If so, we can engage in the futile undertaking of guessing the color of the bikes from black & white photos.
I must say, if nothing else, I've learned a good bit about Mercier history from this thread, including the feud between Emile Mercier and Henri Desgrange. This makes me want to pop over to the self storage and dig out the circa 1980 featureless, sloppy Mercier Bordeaux-Paris (or was it Paris-Bordeaux) Not pink, but blue. Good thing - this is West Texas and I'm not about to go tooling around town on a pink bike. The pink Mercier and pink Torpado Italia are set up for my wife. Those who "make a social statement" here may wind up with tire marks from one of the FWD pickup trucks that constitute 90% of the vehicles on the road.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Texas, USA
> From: oroboyz@aol.com <oroboyz@aol.com>
\r?\n> Subject: Re: [CR] How Remarkable is Mercier? Are You Kidding?
\r?\n> To: kohl57@starpower.net, Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
\r?\n> Date: Sunday, August 16, 2009, 5:50 PM
\r?\n> This whole thing started by someone
\r?\n> asking if we could identify a particular frame/bicycle as
\r?\n> being a Mercier. It had nothing to do with teams, pink
\r?\n> zipperless jerseys or palmares...?
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> The bikes in their construction details are featureless,
\r?\n> even sloppy and therefore unremarkable; what the men who
\r?\n> rode them did with them was indeed remarkable.?
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Sigh...
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Dale
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Dale BRown
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Greensboro, North Carolina NC
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> -----Original Message-----
\r?\n> From: P.C. Kohler <kohl57@starpower.net>
\r?\n> To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
\r?\n> Sent: Sun, Aug 16, 2009 6:42 pm
\r?\n> Subject: [CR] How Remarkable is Mercier? Are You Kidding?
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> I have been lulled out of contented lurkdom by this
\r?\n> extraordinary
\r?\n> discussion. Surely this is a joke or something, the notion
\r?\n> that Mercier, the
\r?\n> bike, the team, its record, is not at the top tier of all
\r?\n> that is wonderful
\r?\n> about the classic era of professional cycle racing? Surely
\r?\n> this cannot be
\r?\n> serious. Mercier was one of the last pro teams sponsored by
\r?\n> a cycle
\r?\n> manufacturer. It was run, for years, by one M. Antonin
\r?\n> Magne, a two-time TdF
\r?\n> champion for heavens sake. The team bikes were indeed pink
\r?\n> when the TdF
\r?\n> finally allowed sponsored teams intead of national ones in
\r?\n> '62. And if
\r?\n> anyone thinks a pink professional Mercier team bike isn't
\r?\n> the definition of
\r?\n> classic cycling cool, you need to switch to collecting BMX
\r?\n> bikes. Or
\r?\n> toasters. The purple/yellow jerseys were just as elegant
\r?\n> and distinctive,
\r?\n> Magne forbidding zippers on them for ages as a true Old
\r?\n> School manager. And
\r?\n> even Pou-Pou is held in disrepute around here. Mon dieu.
\r?\n> The guy placed 3rd
\r?\n> in the 1976 TdF at age 40. Poulidor or Anquetil remains,
\r?\n> even now, the
\r?\n> boxers or briefs sidetaking question in France. You lot
\r?\n> would say Coppi and
\r?\n> be deported within 24 hours.
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> But there's no convincing most folks around here about
\r?\n> anything French in
\r?\n> cycling, is there? All of those horrid pink Mercier pros
\r?\n> you find should be
\r?\n> put on eBay for a Buy it Now for $199 with a warning about
\r?\n> French threading,
\r?\n> stems and squeeling Mafacs. How many can Jerry and I buy
\r?\n> between us? How
\r?\n> many have you got?
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Peter Kohler
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Washington DC USA