Original 7-Eleven Merckx Team Bike | Alex Stieda's Retro-Modern Masterpiece

Wish you mentioned the brakes leavers....what make are those brake leavers.

Alex is great, bridging classic steel 80's with supreme knowledge of contemporary tech. Hope to see more of him. So many riders were great athletes but knew, or cared little, about the hardware under them. More please.

they just do not look right with the low range cluster!! Real men back then ground their way up climbs not sitting there spinning away like a mountain biker !!

Cassettes might have been brushed or wiped down. Beautiful machine requires this.

He could have easily installed a complete 11 speed on this bike! Still very cool, though!

Tires are 700Cx25, or 700Cv28?

😍

I always thought the Bic motobecane was cool

Alex won the Tour de l'Abitibi in1980 in my native area...But i don't remember him i was there but l was 8 years old

I would think 7-11 could afford Campanolo

I met Alex at the Olympic Training Center in '93. What a super guy, and when it was time to ride, he was as excited as a kid on his first bicycle..... Sparks in Daytona

It will outride your modern disc braked overweight plastic crap, most of you are riding!
You can crash, pick it up,and carry on, with maybe few bruises! Can you do that with your modern weighty plastic carbon crap?
No!😅

Great Video! GCN should have Greg Lemond for an interview about his race bikes. I would love that!

spolier alert: it's actually NO longer an original 😄 definitely 'retro-modern' however 😏

Si you have a draw full of shadow stands just have it in your bag ready to go lol.

Amazing bike, amazing clip! I own pretty much the same frame, still with its original metallic blue color. It was my first real high end road bike back in the early 90s. And with some modifications just like those Alex Stieda did, it still runs today.

Alex Steida is awesome. Speaking of the 7-11 bike, I rode with those guys when I was the age of a junior... attending a cycling camp that he ran... rode with a couple other pros.. Thomas Craven was one of them. Nice people.

In order to have an old bike like that one you have to train harder because cycling back in the day was not an easy thing.

Very cool

Nice to see Link looking so fit.. He came through with such a great collection of Canadian riders, Steve Bauer, Curt Harnett, Gervais Rioux, Alison Sydor, Gord Fraser, Brian Walton and many others...

Futurist retro bike

My neighbor growing up got one of these when he volunteered for the cycling events at the 84 Olympics in Los Angeles. I started riding bikes because of that neighbor. Those team bikes are very cool. I had it in my garage for a while during the Atlanta Olympics. Years later my son was on Axels team and got to meet Eddy who rode in the team car behind him during some time trials. Love to see the history. Hmmm wonder if the neighbor still has it.

I have this bike and love riding it. It's definitely a head turner when out on a ride!

good luck finding one of these

Loved the bike and the interview. Great job Simon! Maybe I will do the same thing to my 1984 Cannondale Sr 300.

Originalish.

Que maravilla de bicicleta mi favorita de cuando tenía 13 años y lo sigue siendo como olvidar al primer americano que portó el jersey amarillo al decir americano me refiero a todo el continente desde Alaska asta la Patagonia Alex stieda me alegra saber que todavía pedalea cómo en sus mejores días saludos campeón desde México ✌️

Excuses, excuses. Should’ve used a bigger glass. A vase maybe 😂😂😂

Wow, probably the best video on your channel.

I ❤️ retro bikes! I have an Eddy Merckx myself. The 10 years Anniversery model.
Great video, thank you very much. 👍

I have a Velotech the same era and design! People has no idea what I ride! Badger training cycle.

That's a beautiful bike from a great time in my memory.

I have an old Schwinn World Sport hooked up to my trainer. I changed the handlebars to a wider set, changed the crankset and arms to 1x with 165mm arms, use the same gearing that I have on my gravel bike. I also changed the seat to a Specalized Power. There's something about taking a classic old bike like that and turning it into something more modern, and more importantly, something that will get ridden again. It's like breathing new life into it

My friend has an original his son Jeff Pierce wo n a stage of the tour de France on it. It's branded Huffy. But its not

Favorite GCN video!

Nice - I have Sean Yates' old 7-Eleven, all original.

Wow a 34 on the back. Great video.

I love all the scratches, that bike sees the road.

Beautiful, classic bike, perfectly used, upgraded and maintained

So beautiful, so cool. Thank you for sharing

Huffy

You are awesome!

A bike like this will ride wonderfully. Plenty of compliance from the steel fork and plenty of lively spring with stiffness on the rest of the frame. Steel really soaks up the high frequency road vibrations. Perfect grandfondo machine. If i had to get a new bike, I’d stick with custom steel, as the ride is so smooth. You feel less rattled after a ride on rough tarmac and I like the spring when climbing out of the saddle. Slower on the seated climb, but I don’t care, since I’m just riding with friends.

Cinelli mod.65

nice

I was walking my dog around the block on evening when one of my neighbors rolled up on a 7-11 Merckx. He was on that team. Small world. Fabulous bike.

Still waiting for Simon's retro project.

One of my few possessions is an 85' Eddy Merckx pro...made in Belgium Columbus tubes...had campy strada cranks record derailuer mixed simplex tube shifters dura ace brakes cinelli crit horns circa era...with brake hoods upsidedown down, Sam Marco saddle mavic MA40's on campy hubs ...I had cinelli drops and some other part bin super score parts but when I stripped it down from the original after 500 Miles of storage years. Some stole the parts and all I have is frame and fork crank parts ...it's shall redeemed as it's prize possessive certainly...got it for 250$ and it got me off flat bars after 20+ years ...the whole steal is real thing finally hit me...rode Cannondale Klein and flat bar MTBs late 80s till say 2015ish

Imagine having only one bike to train on and race with! I’d love to see this these days. I’d have one training bike and one race bike per team for each rider. Would definitely save on cash and also make things a lot better to watch