Merckx Corsa Extra

This is my first foray into the retro road side, but I see that as no reason not to start out with something nice. :mrgreen:

Like a lot of people on here I loved watching Le Tour coverage on channel 4 in the 1980's, so even though I am an off-road kind of guy I have always had a soft spot for the last of the steel race frames. The aesthetics just seem so right, especially when compared with modern carbon frames.

I had been keeping my eyes out for something nice for a while, though never really putting much effort into it. However last weekend after a bit of reorganising the collection I just remarked to my wife that there was a retro road bike shaped hole in the fleet and then I saw this advertised on the forum! :shock:
My size, and located close enough that I could drive to collect it. It must have been fate.

So here she is as I got her.

A 1989 Eddy Merckx Corsa Extra in team Stuttgart colours.


























She is in very good condition for a 26 year old bike and I am liking the Sachs groupset. There are a couple of things I would like to change though. Obviously I need some pedals, and I'm not sure about the black Flight Ti. Also not really keen on ergo bars so might need to find something with a more classic shape. As a novice with road bike stuff I'd be happy to hear any suggestions for these.


Also, does anyone know who Uwe Brell is?

Re: Eddy Merckx Corsa Extra

Wow !!! She's a beauty .. Did see this but not my size thankfully !! Or I'd have been making room

Re: Eddy Merckx Corsa Extra

My saddle of choice for retro road is a laser or San Marco super corsa Both near identical as San marco make both

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/selle-san-marco ... 60436760uk

Re: Who is Uwe Brell? (Merckx content within)

Cheers Col. Aye, it is a bit bigger than you like them.
Will have a look at that saddle. I had been thinking Rolls or Turbo, which both fit with the age. I think pedals might be the harder decision.

Parts are starting to arrive now.

I have decided to go for a Turbo saddle as the 80's re-issues are easily available at a decent price. Buying new seems to make more sense with a white saddle.








And I have done a bit of research of serial numbers here so I am confident it is a '89 bike. The build number is for 88/89 and this scheme was only available in '89 and '90 as far as I can tell as the Stuttgart team morphed into the Deutsche Telekom team in 1991. Info from here.

Re:

Nice bike. And yes, Team Stuttgart only existed for two years (as a pro team afair). It was founded by local promotor, Winfried Holtmann, who also organized the Hofbräu-Sixdays and the Coca-Cola Trophy. I guess he was also involved in bringing the tour to Stuttgart in 1987 (stage 3). His main sponsor jumped off, that's why he named it "Team Stuttgart". Sadly I can't help you with Uwe Brell.

Thanks reindeer. Great info. Can you remember the main sponsor that jumped off?
Shame the name Uwe Brell doesn't mean anything to you. That name was not in the team list from 1990 in the link above but I did wonder if he was a rider or not. :?:

Re:

I have no idea, sorry. And uups, what I wrote isn't 100% correct, because the city itself became the main sponsor, funded by a pool of local companys. But looking at the color scheme and the jersey, I guess this wasn't initially planned.

Re: Re:

reindeer":2sxr9jq0 said:

I have no idea, sorry. And uups, what I wrote isn't 100% correct, because the city itself became the main sponsor, funded by a pool of local companys. But looking at the color scheme and the jersey, I guess this wasn't initially planned.

Click to expand...

The plot thickens.
Yes, Stuttgarts colours are black and gold so green, cerise and white don't exactly match!

So, on with the bike. As I mentioned above I wanted to change the bars. Two main reasons for this are I don't like the ergo bar shape and I don't really trust old alloy bars. Especially when you don't know the history of them. So I was looking for a new bar with a classic looking shape. I found the Cinelli 64 and 65 bars on Wiggle which looked promising, but in the end I decided to go for the Nitto Noodles. These bars tick all the boxes for me as they look great, are good quality and are supposed to be comfy too.








And whilst researching them I found this picture of a Merckx wearing Noodles which looks pretty good to my eyes.





I'm still looking for pedal suggestions so if anyone has any recommendations.......

lovely bike Barry, an extra corsa has always been on my list, primarily because of this man

panasonic extra corsa by gmac123, on Flickr

turbos and rolls are very similar shaped saddles imo, used them both in the past and still have two rolls in service. I'm sure the turbo will serve your well

despite the extreme looking profile, i prefer my flite saddles, i currently have 3 bikes sporting flites, 2 mtb and 1 road. i find the narrow less friction shape more comfortable than it appears, so don't be frightened to try it out.

pedal wise, I've only ever used look on my road bikes just because hinault and lemond were so dammed cool

enjoy the miles, and I look forward to seeing it in the flesh sometime

G