Merckx: Half Man, Half Bike

by William Fotheringham

  In the summer of 1961, Eddy did not go on the usual seaside holiday but stayed at home to help his father in the shop. That enabled him to earn enough to take out his first racing licence, and he rode his first race a month after his sixteenth birthday. His mother, according to some versions, was kept in the dark. Eddy and his father had worked out that being a cyclist was not in her plans for her son. The race at Laeken was a comedy classic. Eddy was wearing shoes that were too tight for his feet. He couldn’t stand the pain they gave him and had to pull in by the road and wait for his father to come along in his van with another pair. He was determined to finish the race anyway and took various shortcuts to reach the finish, coming in two minutes ahead of the front runners. He probably should have been disqualified but was awarded sixth place, but it would be five weeks before he again came in the top ten.

  It was clearly his father who was the driving force in his bike racing, but the relationship between father and son was a largely unspoken one. Jules took Eddy to every race as a youth, sometimes taking a lift in a wholesaler’s lorry, but they rarely talked much. ‘He transmitted his emotion to me,’ Eddy recalled for Stéphane Thirion in Tout Eddy. ‘When I won he would have tears in his eyes. He would say, “Eddy, how on earth have you done it again?” When I married, one day he just stopped coming. He never explained why.’ Perhaps Jules felt that he no longer had a place as his son’s key supporter, and felt embarrassed to be in the wings. ‘Maybe I just wanted to make my parents proud of me – my father was … very hard, very severe with us. I’m probably a bit like him.’ Jules died young, in 1983, after a life of hard work, little sleep and many cigarettes. Eddy felt he had been ‘satisfied’ with what his son had achieved, although he never said it.

  It was not just Jules. Both Merckx’s parents were closer to him than might have been the case in other families. He left home at a relatively late age, twenty-two, and other riders noted the time he spent on the telephone to them at night early in his career. There was pressure from Jenny as well, but more subliminally. ‘I think I wanted to show my mother that it was important in life to do what you loved. And also that I could make my way without going to university because to start with she wasn’t keen on my riding the bike. She wanted me to study, to go to university and have a stable, permanent job.’ There was no safety net, once the decision was taken to drop his studies: it was worth going through all the pain and the angst to avoid any sense that his mother might be thinking ‘I told you so’ or his father might think he had not tried enough. He was, in short, caught between a workaholic, perfectionist father and a worrying mother. He inherited the best of both, and would try to live up to both.

  Victory in Petit-Enghien gave young Merckx confidence, and it prompted Félicien Vervaecke to take more of an interest. That winter, the craggy old professional took Merckx to the velodrome at Schaerbeek, in the centre of Brussels, conveniently between the Merckxs’ grocery in Woluwe and his bike shop in Laeken. Track racing is the perfect entrée for young cyclists, developing their pedalling speed, racing skills and the ability to negotiate a fast-moving bunch. The year 1962 began with young Merckx’s second victory, in the kermis race at Haacht on 11 March, with no flukish element to it: he escaped early on, and was never seen again. As they say in Belgium, there was ‘no one else in the photograph’. It was in that year that Eddy Merckx decided to become a full-time cyclist, surprisingly soon for one who had less than a year’s racing behind him.

  1 Aficionados might like to know that the usual underage gear was 49×17; young Merckx was using 50×18.

  ARRIVA MERCKX

  Via Roma, San Remo, 19 March, 1966

  ELEVEN CYCLISTS SPRINT flat out along the straight, slightly downhill street to contest the finish of Milan–San Remo, the opening one-day Classic of the cycling season. Looking down past the coffee bars and ice cream shops, the spectators see four men ahead of the rest, one pair on each side of the road as they fight out victory in the race the Italians call La Primavera, Spring. On the extreme left two Italians: Michele Dancelli in the green, white and red national champion’s jersey, and just in front of him Adriano Durante, in the light grey of the Salvarani team. The far right-hand side of the road belongs to Belgium: close to the gutter is Herman Van Springel, wearing the white of Mann-Grundig, and also in white, for Peugeot-BP, a few feet to his left, Eddy Merckx.

  He is still only twenty years old, with less than a year’s professional racing behind him, and his body language exudes the enthusiasm of a teenager. His elbows are spread wide at a ludicrous angle as he pushes and pulls every last gram of power out of his thigh muscles. His chin is close to touching the handlebars. His shock of thick black hair is pushed back by the wind; intense desire shines from his eyes. At the line the victory is his by a wheel from Durante and half a bike from Van Springel.

  Merckx will go on to win more than thirty Classics, and he will ride victorious up Via Roma a further six times in the next ten years. But the first one matters more than any of the others. Merckx will become synonymous with a particular style of racing, and will become the benchmark by which every cycling champion is judged. Those final metres on Via Roma mark the end of the beginning, the final seconds of an apprenticeship that had lasted only a few months and was a happier experience than formal education.

  School was something that young Eddy endured rather than embraced, from the first day he went, when the teacher – a regular customer at the grocer’s shop in Place des Bouvreuils – had to bring him home because he cried deafeningly. He changed his ways, however, after it was explained to him that his mother was tired, being pregnant with the twins, and he should go without complaint, to lighten the load. But he had trouble concentrating, and found looking out of the window more enticing than listening to the teacher.

  He struggled with homework. There were too many distractions; he would rather help his father by delivering bread on his bike than do the work he was set. By his mid-teens, Eddy was suffering with written French, mainly because it was not his first language, as he had been brought up speaking Flemish at home. Jenny recalled writing letter after letter to explain why his work had not been done. At a meeting between the headmaster and the Merckx parents, it was agreed that Eddy would aim to qualify as a physical education teacher and, in the spring of 1961, his mother managed, briefly, to reconcile Eddy’s ambition in cycling and her fears for his studies by reaching a compromise: he would be allowed to race during the holidays if he got good results in his end-of-year exams. He came sixth out of thirty-six: good enough, in other words.

  The teachers struggled, but the two key men in young Eddy’s amateur cycling career found him a willing, rapid learner. Both contacts came, directly and indirectly, via Jules Merckx. It was Guillaume Michiels who gave Merckx his first cycling jersey, in the colours of Faema, the team which had been made legendary by Rik Van Looy, and which was to be forever associated with Merckx. There can be no doubt about the youngster’s commitment: before that first race in 1961, the sixteen-year-old unpicked the stitched Faema logos from the woollen jersey, as it was not permitted to wear the colours of a professional sponsor. Michiels later became confidant, driver, leg-rubber, the man who rode a motorbike in all weathers with Eddy’s front wheel inches from the back bumper as he worked on his speed and endurance.

  It was Michiels who introduced his young protégé to Félicien Vervaecke, scion of a great Flandrian cycling family and a legendary member of the pre-war Belgian Tour de France team. Vervaecke had once been a great rival of Gino Bartali and now owned a bike shop in Laeken, where Eddy rode his first race, on the opposite side of Brussels from Woluwe. In his mid-fifties, gap-toothed and craggy-faced, Vervaecke had ridden the Tour seven times, twice winning the best climber’s prize and finishing on the podium three times. He was not a man who said much in public, being as quiet as Eddy and Jules, but he was to be a key influence, drawing up young Eddy’s training plans. Most importantly of all, he restrained the young blood from expending too much energy in his
amateur years. Eddy would eventually wear himself out racing, but Vervaecke’s ministrations ensured that he came into professional cycling fresher than most.

  Under Vervaecke’s supervision, Eddy began racing in Schaarbeek at Brussels’ old Palais des Sports track – just a few years away from being demolished – on Tuesdays during the winter of 1961–2. The story is told that Rik Van Steenbergen, no less, became a fan of the youngster. ‘“The Boss” would be seen running to the edge of the track in the Palais des Sports, shouting “no, this time he can’t do it, they’ll get him”; a few seconds later he would subside, catching his breath and muttering “Fantastic, he hung on. Fantastic …”’ Rik I (as opposed to Rik II, Van Looy, The Emperor) admired the young Merckx’s way of riding every track race. The youth would attack two or three laps from the end, gaining twenty to thirty metres, then try to hang on ahead of the pursuing bunch. He usually managed it, a tribute to his pedalling speed and his courage. The track brought a marked improvement to his road racing. Early in 1962, and by now a member of the local cycling club, based in Evere, Eddy won four of his first five races, although he was riding to a restricted programme – one race per weekend, training on Wednesday afternoons only.

  In late spring, however, the conflict between his studies and his racing loomed again. Eddy had been made to repeat a year of school as his results were not up to scratch. That winter, he should have been at French lessons on Tuesday afternoons, but because he wasn’t his marks had declined accordingly. On the other hand, he wanted to prove he could earn his living on a bike. The conflict would soon be resolved. Jenny had an operation. Help was needed in the shop. Eddy wanted out of school. It all added up.

  The turning point came on 1 May 1962, the day before school resumed after the Easter holidays. Eddy won a race south-west of Brussels at Hal (where he had already raced and won in March). He finished alone, four minutes ahead of the next lad, a massive margin at junior level, where the races are relatively short. Beforehand, Jenny had said that if Eddy didn’t win that day he would have to study and pass his exams. ‘My husband phoned about 5 p.m.,’ Jenny Merckx said. ‘He didn’t have to say much: I understood immediately from the tone of his voice. I knew I had lost.’ Eddy came home with 850 Belgian francs in his pocket – 400 for first prize, 450 for intermediate primes. ‘He held the money out to me, shouting so loud that he could be heard on the other side of the square, “I’ve won. Hurray! I don’t have to go to school any more”. It wasn’t what we’d agreed the day before [her point, presumably, being that she had not said in as many words that he could give up his studies] but what was the use in keeping on fighting about it?’ Two days later the headmaster of his school called Jenny to ask if Edouard was ill. Why else would he not have come back to school? Jenny didn’t quite have the courage to say that Eddy had quit school to devote himself to cycling full-time (although the head knew it involved bike racing: he had seen Eddy’s name in the papers, where the results of the Tuesday races at the Palais des Sports were printed).

  With the full support of his family, the seventeen-year-old went from strength to strength. His father ran him around in the grocery van. His mother kept tabs on his diet. Vervaecke supervised his training and delivered nuggets of advice. Eddy won twenty-four races in 1962, impelled by the knowledge that he had made a deal with his parents and he had no option but to keep to his side of it. ‘I didn’t have the right to let anyone down,’ Merckx recalled. ‘I had to keep to the rules – never miss training, be self-disciplined, always give my best. I had taken responsibility so I had to live up to it.’ Some of the amateur racers who had watched him win his first event at Petit-Enghien stopped travelling to races in the north of Brussels: there was usually only one winner.

  The big objective of 1962 was the Belgian junior championship at Libramont in the Ardennes in early September. Michiels told him before the start that he might struggle to make the top fifteen. Eddy’s response was direct: ‘If I can’t make the first five, I might as well change professions right now.’ He took the trouble to inspect the course beforehand and won, of course, after riding a perfect race: holding back when the early move went and attacking to join the leaders. The win was not as simple as many of the others that would follow, but it underlined Merckx’s utter determination. He bridged first to the lead group, then to one lone rider, Daniel De Hertogh, who in turn could not stay with Merckx as he pushed hard around one corner. That left Merckx alone in the lead with a lap to go. On that final lap, a strong chase group of half a dozen came together, and closed to about a hundred metres just before the final kilometre. At the line, Merckx had only a few metres’ lead: in the finish picture, it looks as if he is leading in the group in a sprint.

  Merckx’s amateur career was short, and it left him physically fresh and hungry for success when he turned professional, unlike many talented amateurs who were pushed hard in their formative years. Vervaecke and his father were in complete agreement: Eddy had to race a relatively light programme as an adolescent, in order to permit his body to recover and develop. He was steered away from stage races, prevented from racing on successive days so that his body could develop unhindered. This also meant he had little time to fall into bad habits. There was no chance to remain in a comfort zone, taking one straightforward win after another. Later, Merckx was to say that this was the most important thing Vervaecke did for him, but what is particularly impressive is that he actually followed the advice. Vervaecke also made him use a lower gear than might have been expected, to ensure that he developed a rapid pedalling style – souplesse as the French call it – rather than hammering on a big gear to gain early successes that would be meaningless in the long term.

  Vervaecke was important in other ways. He also just happened to be an occasional mechanic to the Belgian national cycling team and understood something of the politics involved. He advised Merckx to build a relationship with Lucien Acou, the former top track racer who ran the team, and to that end Merckx would drop into Acou’s café near the abattoirs in the Brussels locale of Cureghem. The smoke-filled café was not the place to talk bikes; he was invited into the living quarters above, where, inevitably, he encountered Acou’s daughter, Claudine, who was a year younger than him, and had her eyes set on a teaching career. She had already heard his name, because when her father was asked who had won a given race, he tended to reply: ‘Eddy Merckx, again’. When they finally met, she was struck by the fact that he was wearing shorts.

  Claudine had no intention of becoming the wife of a cyclist, having seen her father covered in cuts after falling off on the track. That didn’t deter Eddy, although when they first met he was ‘flirting a bit’ with the daughter of one of his supporters. As he said later, ‘to start with I went to see Acou, then it was Claudine’. At one point, the national coach pointed this out to his daughter, to her great embarrassment. Claudine said that she knew as soon as they met that they would become husband and wife, but the courtship lasted four years; the marriage is now approaching forty-five years and counting.

  There were other influences, among the group of twenty or twenty-five professional riders then living in the Brussels area. Guillaume Michiels and others would meet in the centre of the city, at the start of the main road to Leuven; the little training group also included the local star Emile Daems. As a winner of Paris–Roubaix, the Giro di Lombardia and Milan– San Remo and a multiple stage victor in the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France, Daems was probably the biggest Bruxellois star of the time. Another was Willy Vannitsen, equally talented, also a Classic winner, but not as devoted to his métier. The half-dozen or so regulars would cover up to two hundred kilometres depending on the weather, the wind and the numbers.

  ‘One day Guillaume said “tiens, I’ve got a young rider I know, he’s not bad,” and that was Merckx. He didn’t come regularly, he was still racing as an amateur, in fact he might have been at the débutant stage, but he was already strong.’ As they rode, the pros would play at racing on their bikes, attacking
each other, dropping a weaker element, chasing, working together. One day they left Merckx 150 metres behind. There were four of them in front, and they thought they would see what he was made of. They rode hard together for fifteen kilometres; at the end of it, they turned round, and the teenager was still 150 metres behind, having kept up with the four of them on his own.

  Sometimes, they took in a cobbled climb at Reimy Pont, south of Brussels in the French-speaking part of Brabant. It was not long, 250 or 300 metres, Daems says, but steep – 15 per cent. The group would race up it, with a mock finish at the top. A tarmac path ran alongside the cobbles, and the riders would fight to use this smoother surface, which was far easier to ride on. Again, Merckx showed his strength: on one occasion – when he was only in his teens – he managed to match the pace of the older men, but he did so while riding on the cobbles as they took the smoother route up the tarmac. Already, Daems recalls, he was clearly more powerful than might have been expected for his age.

  Also on some of those rides was Bob Lelangue, a former Belgian amateur champion, who would go on to be a directeur sportif at Merckx’s Molteni team. And, at about this time, Merckx first got to know a young footballer with the Sporting Anderlecht club, when the pair of them were waiting for their respective parents in the same café in the Brussels suburb. The same youth, tall and blond, also turned up at the grocer’s shop in Place des Bouvreuils to sell coffee in the mornings before he went to train. Later in life, Paul Van Himst and the cycling star would become firm friends, and shining lights in Belgian sport.