Lightweight Classics: 2014

Dec 31, 2014

1949 - Scheller Track

Fritz Scheller, born 1914 in Erlangen was a German cyclist. It was 1932 when he joined the German Championship for Amateurs for the first time. Back then he was aged 17 and therefore the German cycling federation had to grant an exemption. After about 235 km he finished with an elongated final sprint and under the tremendous applause of the audience the German Championship Run in Nuremberg before the favorites Charles Hornig from Essen and the two Berliners Putkammer and Stach and became the youngest German Road Champion.

In 1936 he was able to repeat this success. The same year he competed at the Olympic Games in Berlin in the road race and finished fourth. In 1937, he became the German Road Champion for the third time, and finshed the Road World Championships in Copenhagen in third place. Scheller also won the Harzrundfahrt in 1934 and 1936.

In 1938 Scheller became a Pro. In 1939 he again won the Harzrundfahrt, and at the Deutschlandfahrt he finished third in the overall standings. In 1940 he was third in the German road championship and won around the Hainleite. After WW II he became German champion in 1946 and in 1948 he finished at third place in the Grünes Band of the IRA, a predecessor of the Tour of Germany.

After the end of his active cycling career Fritz Scheller started his own bike shop in Nuremberg, did organize race days on the velodrome at Reichelsdorfer Keller and sold several track bikes to Reichelsdorfer Keller and Tourenklub Nürnberg.

The frames Scheller sold in his bike shop were made in Neumarkt, Oberpflaz at the Express factory.

Please stay tuned for more pictures of this rare find.

1980 - German Champion Replica Hercules Ajaccio - part one

I´m not quite sure what kind of material Friedrich von Loeffelholz was using when pedaling to amateur championship in 1978.

I´m sorry, but unfortunately I didn´t manage to find more hints and facts on that. Thus leads to the situation that I will point out only the facts I´ve came along without an collaborating time line or really structured and approved history.

Friedrich von Loeffelholz, born in 1955, was a co-founder of the RSG Nuremberg (Rennsportgemeinschaft Nürnberg e.V.) in 1972. The RSG Nuremberg was a co-working project of the RC 1950 Erlangen and the Verein Sportplatz Nürnberg 1903.

The RSG was renamed several times: RSG Paintco Franken (1973), RSG Franken Katzwang (1975) and RSG Hercules Nürnberg (1980), RSG Nürmberg (1990).

Starting at 1996 they became a individual professional team founding the RSG Nürnberg Profiradteam GmbH until 2002. The RSG was closed in 2010 finally.

At the end of the Seventies or start of the Eighties Hercules seems to have supported german (amateur) team with frames and material. May be the missing link is Freidrich von Loeffelholz, who started to work at Hercules or who joined forces with them after his won championship in 1978. Obviously he earned a living at Hercules in 1982 as shown in the following catalog scan.

Nevertheless Hercules produced their Ajaccio called Champion Replicas between round about 1979 and 1987. First the frame was made out of "noname" high mangan 0.9/0.6 tubes, starting in 1980 with Reynolds 531 double butted tubes and finally in 1986 Hercules switched to Columbus SL tubes.

These lightweights (9,2 kg) were equipped with Campagnolo Super Records components for Brakes, Levers, Shifters, Bottom Bracket, Crankset and Headset. Gearing was achieved with Huret Jubilee derailleurs; Campagnolo Super Records Derailleurs were optional for a long time.

What you see in the follwing is a 1980 frame waiting for its reassembling to its original standard:

Stay tuned for next steps with more information about RSG and hercules history as well as pictures of the upcoming Ajaccio build.

1949 - Bismark Modell 126 Toni Merkens - Part One

On 12 September 1896, the Fahrradwerke Bismark GmbH was registered in the commercial register of Lennep. Before that the oldand retired Reich Chancellor Prince Otto von Bismarck has given his personal consent to use the Bismark brand. Thus in 1897 the first bicycles were produced in Bergerhof, Radevormwald. In 1918 the company was renamed to Fahrradwerke Bismarck, Schütte & Co., Bergerhof Rhld.

In the 30s a two-speed gear, which was integrated into the bottom bracket, was developed. Bicycles equipped with this gear mechanism got the name "Berg wie Tal". Although the Bismark racing team earned many national and international victories the greatest success of the racing team took place in the postwar period. For instance earned the Bismark team victory in the Deutschlandrundfahrt 1951 and 1952.

In autumn 1957 Bismark went bankrupt and was sold in pieces. The naming righs went to a firm called Falter in Bielefeld, which build and sold bicycles up to the late 90s under the Bismark brand.

Unfortunately I didn´t come over more information about the Modell 126 and the relationship between Toni Merkens and Bismark. Toni Merkens was born in 1912.

Merkens completed an apprenticeship as a bicycle mechanic at Fritz Köthke in Cologne. In 1933 he won his first German Championship in the sprint. In 1934 he was able to repeat this success and also won at the British Open Championships and the Grand Prix de Paris. At the track world championships in the same year in Leipzig, he finished fourth. In 1935 he again won the championship in the sprint from Germany and Great Britain as well as the Paris Grand Prix.

At the World Championships 1935 in Brussels Merkens could also win the title, as he successed against the Durchman Arie van Vliet with 2:1 runs. At the 1936 Olympic Games he was able to repeate this victory.

The above photograph shows Toni Merkens at the 1936 Olympics with a Hetchins, not with a Bismark. Other sources also report to have seen him mostly on frames build by Hetchins.

Immediately after the 1936 Olympics Merkens became a professional. In 1937 and 1939 he was German Vice Champion in the sprint. In 1940 he was the German Champion stayer, 1941 Vice Champion, 1942 Merkens became German Champion in the sprint and again stayer Vice Champion.

The Catalog picture shown above explicitly refers to victories won after WW II. But even in these days Toni Merkens demonstrably couldn´t have been involved anymore, because he already passed away in 1944 in a field hospital in Bad Wildbad to meningitis, after he was injured in 1942 on the Eastern Front (Russia) by a shrapnel.

Stay tunes for an update with pictures of my Bismark Model 126

Dec 28, 2014

1982 - the Austrian Stallion Austro-Daimler/ Puch Vent Noir II

Johann Puch was a well-known bicycle manufacturer in Austria-Hungary at the end of the 19th century. In 1906 he formed Johann Puch Erste Steiermarkische Fahrrad-Fabriks-Aktiengesellschaft in Graz, Austria.

The company produced bicycles, motorcycles and small automobiles.

In 1914 the name was simplified to "Puchwerke AG". Puch merged with Austro Daimler in 1925.

Puch car production ended back then, though Austro Daimler continued making cars until merger with Steyr in 1934, forming Steyr-Daimler-Puch. Steyr carried on with cars until 1977, when the last license-built FIATs rolled off the line. Since 1979 the Mercedes G-Modell runs on the lines of Steyr-Daimler-Puch in Graz.

Production of bicycles was closed in Graz in 1987 by selling this part to Bianchi group. More details on Puch history can be founde here.

In the Seventies and Eighties Austro-Daimler and Puch followed the bike boom to the american marked and wereknown for their famous models Super Leicht, Ultima, Mistra EL and Vent Noir.

In Austria the RC ARBÖ ASKÖ RAPSO Knittelfeld with Rudolf Mitteregger, Harald Maier, Hans Lienhart and Leo Karner claimed many victories on Puch leightweights since 1978.

That was the podium Puch and Austro-Daimler needed in order to introduce and proof the famous models and frames beeing rock solid and fast.

In 2011 the austrian Faber GmbH let the brand name Puch raise again by selling fixies and eBikes with chinese componetns to hippsters and to the masses; something like a real mess in comparision with the quality Austro-Daimler/ Puch leightweights were known for in the past.

In 1975 Austro-Daimler/ Puch launched the black smoke chromed Vent Noir, which was Campagnolo equipped first and Shimano Dura Ace 1. Generation black equipped at 1976.

In 1981 the model Vent Noir II was the smoke chromed successor of the Vent Noir; equipped with Shimano Dura Ace EX.

Please stay tuned ... pictures of mine Vent Noir II will follow.

Dec 27, 2014

1939 - Rudge Withworth Modell 95 Aero Path Track for Wembley Six Days - Part One

Rudge-Whitworth were the track frames of choice for many riders around the turn of the 20th century but after 1920 they did not make any again except for for a very brief period just prior to WWII.

Rudge was bought by EMI in 1935 and they soon engaged the services of Jack Lauterwasser, who had won a medal at the 1928 Olympics and had in the early 1930s built some very fine frames under his own name.

Jack Lauterwasser developed a range of top quality road frames for Rudge. And Rudge decided to garner publicity for their new models by sponsoring riders at the Wembley 6-day races in the period 1937–1939.

This track frame Hilary Stone believes was one of the four frames built for the 1939 Wembley Six.

Rudge did offer a track bike in their 1939 catalogue, Model 95, the Aero Path but this frame is clearly not the same.

It has different fork blades and both the forks are fully chromed. There is a picture of Karel Kaers with his Rudge at either the 1938 Wembley Six and this is very similar to the catalogue picture with different forks to this frame.

Further research shows that the frames ridden by the two teams sponsored by Rudge for 1939 (including the winner Karel Kaers had all chrome forks (the fork is fully chromed under the paint) with this shape of fork blade. A picture of Karel Kaers riding an identical frame to this one in the 1939 Wembley 6-day can be seen here.

Luckily team Karel Kjaers and Omer de Bruycker won the 1939th session with 1,812.5 miles and 938 points by two laps in front of their competitors.

Please stay tuned to see how this frame and this four of a kind will be matched with some period correct parts in order to be ridden on the Ferry Dusika track course again.

1974 - Eddy Mercx Molteni Team - Kessels Frame

Eddy Merckx, born in June 17, 1945, rode for thirteen seasons, but thoroughly dominated cycling for a full ten years like no one else has before or since. Winning the Amateur World Championship Road Race in 1964 he turned pro in 1965.

His first major victory came in the 1966 Milan-San Remo at age 20. His last major victory was in that same race, ten years later. In his peak years, 1969 through 1975, Merckx won an astounding 35% of races entered.

He won the Tour de France and the Giro d´Ítalia five times and the Vuelta a Espana once.

He won each of cycling’s five monuments (Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Tour of Lombardy) more than twice, for a record of nineteen victories in these races.

Between 1968 and 1974, he eleven Grand Tours. He is the only rider to win all of the classifications (overall, mountains and points jerseys) in a single year at the Tour de France (1969) and the Giro d’Italia (1968). Additionlly he achieved an hour world record in Oktober 1972 (with 49,431 km/h) that was unbeaten for at least 42 years. Awesome.

Formerly the the Tour de France started with trade teams only, switched to national teams in 1930, moved to trade teams in 1962 and decided baed on the riders strike near Bordeaux in 1966 to return to national teams again.

When 1969 tour was pronounced to return to trade teams Eddy Merckx joined the Faema Team and won the general classification (yellow jersey), points classification (green jersey) and the mountains classification and became. As he was the fist time Belgian who won the Tour since Sylvère Maes 30 years earlier he became a national hero as well.

In 1971 he switched to the Molteni Team and intruduced his own racing frames to the equipe Molteni

Within his active carrer Eddy Merckx rode frames from Masi, Colnago, Kessels and De Rosa. Since Ernesto Colnago sponsored the Molteni Team during the periode of 1968 to 1973 the switch to frames made by Kessels must have been done in 1974.

Kessels was a Belgian framebuilder who had a quite reasonably sized frame shop in Ostend building both top race bikes and cheaper look-a-likes.

This frame with Campagnolo dropouts and the two large round cutouts in the bottom bracket shell is supposed to be an ex-team bike, shows its original paint and decals and many signs of being much raced and well-used within the team/ equipe. The bottom bracket shows hadnwritten with white enamel the name of the original driver.

Bottom Braket: Campagnolo Nuovo Record

Headset: Campagnolo Nuovo Record

Crankset: Campagnolo Nuovo Record

Front Derailleur: Campagnolo Nuovo Record

Rear Derailleur: Campagnolo Nuovo Record

Shift levers: Campagnolo Nuovo Record

Brake Lever: Campagnolo Nuovo Record

Brakes: Campagnolo Nuovo Record

Wheelset: Campagnolo Nuovo Record with Mavic tubular rims

Saddle: Brooks Professional
Seatpost: Campagnolo Nuovo Record
Stem: Ambrosio/ 3ttt Record
Handlebar: 3ttt
Pedals: Gipiemme Pista

Frame tubing: Reynolds 531
Fork tubing: Reynolds 531

1972 - Rickert - Olympic Champions made in Dortmund

The region experienced its economic boom in the first and second industrial revolutions. It is marked by immigration and a proud working shaft. Today it is more likely structurally weak. In German it´s called the "Ruhrpott" and is characterized by the fact that cities are adjoining cities. Green belts around cities exist on the fringe of region only.

Nevertheless this region became a cycling paradies when Hugo Rickert started his business in Dortmund.

Hugo Rickert, born in 1928, completed his apprenticeship first as a merchant at Karl Hoesch (today Hoesch AG) and then as a mechanic at the local bicycle manufacturer Brose. In his sparetime he joined cycling with the club RV Sturmvogel 25.

In 1951 Hugo Rickert started his own business in Dortmund-Eving. On frames and bikes of the Rickert brand many titles were won. Thus Udo Hempel became World Champion in 1970 and won Olympic Gold in the team pursuit 1972. Other prominent customers were Dieter Gieseler, who won Olimpic Silver in 1960 in Rome and Karl-Heinz Marsell, who became the Stayer World Champion in 1961.

Hugo Rickert closed his business in 2002. Over these 51 years in business, the double line on the seat stays, which were applied by his wife Doris, became a very distinctive and individual trademark, while symbolizing some of the characteristics of this specific region - outwardly tough and coarse, soft on the inside.

In 2011 Hugo Rickert passed away, but his frames and bicycles became a piece of history - not only for the region but really as a collector´s item as well.