Monday, April 20, 2009

1994 Merckx catalog pages

Courtesy of my friend Harry, here are the Merckx pages from the 1994 Gita catalog. There's only two, so read slowly!



The Century TSX is still available for the 1994 model year. The catalog says it comes with a flat fork crown, yet the catalog pictures clearly show one of the bikes with a sloping crown. Retail price: $1225.00

The Corsa's shown are in two replica color schemes, and both are sporting replica down tube lettering instead of the normal Merckx decals. Retail price: $925.



Oops, I cut off Lance's head in the scans. I believe thats a picture of him winning the CoreStates US Pro Championships. Whatever race its from, its prior to his winning the '93 worlds, based on his jersey.

The Titanal was new for 1994. Apparently, its a bonded Titanium frame. I've never actually seen one. Who actually produced these? What frame manufacturer in Austria was producing bonded frames in the mid-90's?

Finally, the MX-Leader. Retail price: $1421.00

Click any pic for a high res version. Enjoy!

5 comments:

Cracked Headtube said...

Lance gets enough media coverage, we don't need to see him here, too.

EE said...

IIRC Titanal is an aluminium variant. The name is probably something marketing giving you the impression, it would be titan like.

Again IIRC, titanal frames tended to brake and the material vanished from bike building eventually. Currently, lither, stiffer, longer living - just better - aluminium frames are built from fairly pedestrian aluminium variants.

peppi said...

I've just stumbled upon your blog and am now binge-reading it. The late 80s and earyly 90s are my favourite epoch in terms of bicycle technology, as well. Ive recently rebuilt my 1991 Schwinn Aluminum 354, which was rotting in my parents' garden using 1987-1990 Shimano Ultegra parts; I still love that bike for its handling.

Tirana is a trademark of an Austrian company for an aluminium alloy that contains 0.25% titanium. It's one of the strongest aluminium alloys, but apparently also quite brittle, resulting in lits of cracked frames. Since it's not easily weldable, bicycle frames are made from tubes bonded to aluminium lugs, similar to the first carbon fiber frames (Vitus, Cadex etc.).

The top of the line road and mountain bikes from German manufacturer Hercules (which seems to have been part of Sachs) were made from Titanal in 1993 and/or 1994. Nowadays, it's quite difficult to find an intact frame.

peppi said...

And thus autocorrect strikes again.. It's supposed to be "Titanal", not "Tirana".

Emerxil said...

Titanal = Hagan

Related Posts with Thumbnails