Eddy Merckx (EM) recently celebrated his 60th birthday.
By common consent EM is the greatest rider ever to have ridden a bike in anger.
Today the name of Merckx resonates perhaps not as strongly as it once did.
This is my attempt to portray the man and the cyclist.
“He is now the highest paid rider in the world. The lowest criterium appearance fee is £600.00 and the highest being £1,000.00. His team the only team to finish with all 10 men will find the reflected glory (of winning the 1969 TDF) bringing them a small fortune, something like £2,500.00 each”.
“My performance in the 1969 TDF is perhaps my greatest achivement.
To win all five classement jerseys and to win the TDF stands out.
Remember we raced for 22 days, with no rest day either !”
Hugh Porter at the Dave Rayner fund dinner 2004 interviewing EM :
“E, why did you decide to go on that lone break on the Luchon-Mourenaux stage ?
You ascended the Tourmalet on a 53x13 gear – why or what made you do this, after all it’s one of the toughest stages in any TDF and you could have ridden within yourself, give your already huge lead in that 1969 Tour ?”
EM after a very long pause to consider his answer :
“I did it because I am mad !”.
(Audience convulsed with laughter and applause).
“I felt I had to be here. It’s that simple. Sean Kelly is a great great rider.
One of the greatest in the history of cycling.
I consider Sean to be a close friend and I just had to fly here to Carrick on Suir to cycle with Sean in his last race.
The King of Belgium asked me to convey to Sean, as well, the best wishes of all the Belgian people on his retirement.
We regard Sean as Belgian”
- to legendary Irish commentator Jimmy McGee on 12th December 1994 at SK’s last ever race in Tipperary, Ireland.
“Axel has done something which no Merckx ever did – that is win an Olympic medal.
I was always proud of Axel. I know he took a hard road and that he would get a lot of pressure. Axel achievement today makes me very very happy.
More happy than managed to feel with my own achievements.
- after AM bronze medal win at Athens 2004
“I always cycled to win. I cannot explain this or tell you why I wanted to win every race. I just did feel this way.
Neither of my parents cycled or raced.
Maybe it was my very happy upbringing. My parents were great parents.
Maybe that’s why I did so well – my happy childhood.”
“You know that he’s a very very tough man but a very very fair man.
I raced against Eddy for years and he beat me a lot more than I beat him.
But he never denigrated me or the other cyclists he competed against.
I always had the feeling that Eddy competed and was hardest on himself.
It wouldn’t matter if we were there or not – he would have tried to beat
himself !”
- Felice Gimondi.
“I called to deliver Eddy’s new bike for the Milan-San Remo race in 1967.
I knew he got up early and trained – so I arrived at the hotel at 7.00am.
When I got to his hotel, the receptionist tells me “Merckx is gone off on his bike”.
I waited there all day and in the afternoon I saw him pedalling back.
“where were you ?, I asked”. “Oh, I went training to a village called
Albi” “You couldn’t have – Albi is about 350+ kilometres away !”
Eddy had ridden 350kms two days before competing and winning his first
of 7 Milan-San Remos.
How could someone recover and win so quickly ? The man was phenomenal”
- Ernesto Colnago Master Bike Builder.
“He used to get up in the middle of the night. He couldn’t sleep and he used to go downstairs and look at his bike.
This would be a regular thing with Eddy. He was always thinking about cycling and his bike”
- Claudine Merckx (Eddy’s wife)
“You might call this the ravings of an old man, but EM reminds me of the guys who cycled before the Great War (WWI). Hard men, men who worked in the fields all day
and who would cycle for sport at the weekend, for fun.
In an era of hard physical work, people took pride in having free time and they enjoyed the freedom of cycling back them. EM reminds me of those same men”
-Phillippe Thys (first man to win 3 T’sDF between 1911-1921) in 1969
“Before the crash at Blois, cycling was easy for me. No strain, no strain whatsoever.
I turned the pedal easily. Even in the TDF, I was never tired.
After the crash, cycling became more difficult for me. Yes, I still managed to win but it was never as easy as it was before the crash. I lost a lot to that crash.
Of course the death of my pacemaker (Fernand Wambst) was terrible in that accident as well.
But from a cycling perspective, I was never the same rider after 1969”.
“I always flogged myself on the bike. I can’t cycle any other way. Maybe that’s not the way the people who know about the sport think a rider should ride. But I knew no other way.”
By common consent EM is the greatest rider ever to have ridden a bike in anger.
Today the name of Merckx resonates perhaps not as strongly as it once did.
This is my attempt to portray the man and the cyclist.
“He is now the highest paid rider in the world. The lowest criterium appearance fee is £600.00 and the highest being £1,000.00. His team the only team to finish with all 10 men will find the reflected glory (of winning the 1969 TDF) bringing them a small fortune, something like £2,500.00 each”.
“My performance in the 1969 TDF is perhaps my greatest achivement.
To win all five classement jerseys and to win the TDF stands out.
Remember we raced for 22 days, with no rest day either !”
Hugh Porter at the Dave Rayner fund dinner 2004 interviewing EM :
“E, why did you decide to go on that lone break on the Luchon-Mourenaux stage ?
You ascended the Tourmalet on a 53x13 gear – why or what made you do this, after all it’s one of the toughest stages in any TDF and you could have ridden within yourself, give your already huge lead in that 1969 Tour ?”
EM after a very long pause to consider his answer :
“I did it because I am mad !”.
(Audience convulsed with laughter and applause).
“I felt I had to be here. It’s that simple. Sean Kelly is a great great rider.
One of the greatest in the history of cycling.
I consider Sean to be a close friend and I just had to fly here to Carrick on Suir to cycle with Sean in his last race.
The King of Belgium asked me to convey to Sean, as well, the best wishes of all the Belgian people on his retirement.
We regard Sean as Belgian”
- to legendary Irish commentator Jimmy McGee on 12th December 1994 at SK’s last ever race in Tipperary, Ireland.
“Axel has done something which no Merckx ever did – that is win an Olympic medal.
I was always proud of Axel. I know he took a hard road and that he would get a lot of pressure. Axel achievement today makes me very very happy.
More happy than managed to feel with my own achievements.
- after AM bronze medal win at Athens 2004
“I always cycled to win. I cannot explain this or tell you why I wanted to win every race. I just did feel this way.
Neither of my parents cycled or raced.
Maybe it was my very happy upbringing. My parents were great parents.
Maybe that’s why I did so well – my happy childhood.”
“You know that he’s a very very tough man but a very very fair man.
I raced against Eddy for years and he beat me a lot more than I beat him.
But he never denigrated me or the other cyclists he competed against.
I always had the feeling that Eddy competed and was hardest on himself.
It wouldn’t matter if we were there or not – he would have tried to beat
himself !”
- Felice Gimondi.
“I called to deliver Eddy’s new bike for the Milan-San Remo race in 1967.
I knew he got up early and trained – so I arrived at the hotel at 7.00am.
When I got to his hotel, the receptionist tells me “Merckx is gone off on his bike”.
I waited there all day and in the afternoon I saw him pedalling back.
“where were you ?, I asked”. “Oh, I went training to a village called
Albi” “You couldn’t have – Albi is about 350+ kilometres away !”
Eddy had ridden 350kms two days before competing and winning his first
of 7 Milan-San Remos.
How could someone recover and win so quickly ? The man was phenomenal”
- Ernesto Colnago Master Bike Builder.
“He used to get up in the middle of the night. He couldn’t sleep and he used to go downstairs and look at his bike.
This would be a regular thing with Eddy. He was always thinking about cycling and his bike”
- Claudine Merckx (Eddy’s wife)
“You might call this the ravings of an old man, but EM reminds me of the guys who cycled before the Great War (WWI). Hard men, men who worked in the fields all day
and who would cycle for sport at the weekend, for fun.
In an era of hard physical work, people took pride in having free time and they enjoyed the freedom of cycling back them. EM reminds me of those same men”
-Phillippe Thys (first man to win 3 T’sDF between 1911-1921) in 1969
“Before the crash at Blois, cycling was easy for me. No strain, no strain whatsoever.
I turned the pedal easily. Even in the TDF, I was never tired.
After the crash, cycling became more difficult for me. Yes, I still managed to win but it was never as easy as it was before the crash. I lost a lot to that crash.
Of course the death of my pacemaker (Fernand Wambst) was terrible in that accident as well.
But from a cycling perspective, I was never the same rider after 1969”.
“I always flogged myself on the bike. I can’t cycle any other way. Maybe that’s not the way the people who know about the sport think a rider should ride. But I knew no other way.”
