A couple more notes on Mercier features, relative to Norris' extremely informative message.
I found somewhere on the net and copied to my files pictures of Perin's 1980 team bike which has a brazed on number tag and scolloped out ends to the forks and stays. The seat stay caps on this frame have the same M and Crown as Leon's and mine, but engraved into a flat plate.
I think the reinforced fork blades were a feature of all Services Des Courses frames - they are certainly on my 3 and all others I have seen pictures of.
Norris, you are right that Mercier were a very significant bike builder but I think one of their problems was they never won the Tour de France - eternally second. Their riders had to move to other teams to win. I don't think their publicity was very good in the UK - I have been flipping back through magazines when they were as close to being in their heyday as they ever were, but it is not a brand that jumps out at one as being significant. I never knew anybody who had one "back in the day". I think they must have been content serving the French market until they jumped on the US bike boom bandwagon. There is no question that their Service Des Course churned out some really nice well-finished (especially by French standards) bikes with either Campagnolo or French components. Gitanes and Peugeots are very crude by comparison, much as I love them.
Hugh Thornton
Cheshire, England
From: Norris Lockley <nlockley73@gmail.com> Subject: [CR] Help! Trying To Identify a Mercier frame/bike To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Date: Thursday, 24 June, 2010, 20:43
Considering the long-term presence of Mercier bikes in the French Pro peloton, not a great deal has been written about the bikes that Poulidor, Bobbet ( at one period in his career), Leducq, Antonin Magne, Rene LeGreves, Francis and Charles Pelissier, Lapebie, Archambaud, Speicher, Zootemelk and many others rode. There are volumes about the riders but very little about the bikes.
Mercier was an important company, and was considered to be one of the real movers and shakers of the French cycle industry in the period from the 1950s through to the late 70s. As late as the mid 70s the firm employed over 300 staff and produced around 120,000 bikes per year of which 85% were models.orientated towards roadc racing. Although the Lejeune company from outside Paris had also a notable presence in the prloton it was a small company compared with Mercier from St Etienne. The two companies share another thing in common - the difficulty in understanding their range of models.
For some time I have been trying to put together an article about Mercier, but apart from dozens of photos of pink (rose) coloured bikes, I have little text. However at just about the time that this enquiry hit the CR List, I had made an interesting discovery about Mercier..and I had also managed to overcome the computer problems that have dogged me for about three months now.
In the 50s Mercier depended very largely on Rubis and Kromo tubing made in St Etienne for their lightweight frames..and then graduated onto Reynolds 531 DB for the next twenty years or so. Certainly the firm was still using Reynolds as late as 1976. However by the time the 1981 catalogue was published the company had switched all its lightweight frames to Columbus tubing.
Around that time, perhaps the late 70s I recall cycling in the French Alps and calling in a lightweight cycle specialist's shop in the beautiful lake-side two of Annecy. We were discussing lightweight frames when he srung a surprising question on me. - In your country do many lightweight frames built from Reynolds 531 suffer from splits in their tubes?
I explained that it certainly wasn't a common occurence..sometimes cracks around a tube, particularly with the new 753 tubing... He then proceeded to show me a Mercier frame whose seat tube displayed a two inch long split down its length. Apparently an increasing number of Mercier frames had been known to split..rather than crack. Does Reynolds make a type of seamed Reynolds 531 ? was the next question Like me he thought that all that type of tubing was solid drawn. He mentioned that Mercier had decided to start using some Columbus tubing sets...
Back at my workshop after the holiday, one of the first repair jobs was a mid range Raleigh road frame..Reynolds 531 frame and forks, the head tube of which had developed a noticeable split. From a closer examination of the tubes it was evident that the tubes were seamed, so I concluded that TI - Reynolds were actually producing seamed 531 for the large cycle manufacturers.
In the 70s all Mercier's Reynolds 531 frames were individually hand-built using small hand-held brazing torches. The firm also had a Service de Course workshop for its custom frames A feature of most of these frames is the treatment of the ends of the seat and chainstays and the fork blade tips, whereby they domed ends are filed almost to a point. This treatment can be seen clearly on the Mercier on Brad Stockwells' Wooljersey site. The same treatment can often be found on the frames of the Mecacycle company ,Cizeron, and Tonic Cycles all of whom were based in St Etienne, Mecaycle and Cizeron being in the same street as Mercier.
However the stay and fork end treatment on Leon's frame - the scolloped out ends - is much more akin to the treatment adopted by most of France's craftsman-builders. That feature couipled with the reinforced fork crown and the number-plate hanger make me think the frame is very much a custom built Mercier..rather than just a high end model from Mercier. I have seen several similar frames from the mid 70s.
The odd features of Leon's frame are the almost GIOS-like shouldered top-eyes. These are not at all like those used in the mid-70s which were pointed oval plates with the name MERCIER engraved into them.. Do we know that the frame is Reynolds ? or is it possible that Leon's frame is an 80s model, custom-built and made of Columbus tubing in which case it would be the Tour de France Recorde model - especially if it had a chrome-plated fork.
As for transfers, Hughe...you can count on me as I need several sets. Durable transfers were never Merciers strong point.
Norris Lockley
Settle Uk...just getting back into the saddle both literally and metaphorically speaking.