Unique Pro Cycling Bikes And Tech | Koers Museum Tour

While having a look around the incredible Koers Museum, Jon found hundreds of amazing bikes from some of the first ever race bikes, to a groundbreaking designs of the 1990s. Unfortunately we couldn’t fit them all in this video, so here are some of Jon’s favourites!

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The Koers museum is absolutely chock full of incredible bikes and tech, including the bike of Briek Schotte from 1947, that one’s got wooden rims! Jon also spotted a crazy looking Giant track bike from 2005, designed by Mike Burrows, one of the most innovative designers in the history of cycling!

One of Jon’s personal favourites is the motor pacing bike from the 1960s. With their backwards forks, sliding stem and smaller front wheel, these bikes just look so weird.

Let us know what your favourite bike is down below!

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Music: Epidemic Sound
Superpowers (Instrumental Version) – Ameryh

Photos: © Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images & © Bettiniphoto / http://www.bettiniphoto.net/

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I’m here at curse in ruseler in Belgium and I’ve already done a video on what exactly this is all about but I’ve just walked into the final room on my tour and it deserves its own video so I’m gonna go through a few of the amazing bikes that here on display and some real fancy features on them we’ve got really old vintage bikes and state-of-the-art modern ones too I don’t sadly have time to go through all of them as much as I’d love to because this would probably be a 24 hour documentary instead I’m gonna try and condense it a little bit so you can see some cracking bits of tech from old and new first up then I’m gonna take it back to 1947 this is the bike of Rick shot and well amazingly you can see straight away there is nothing modern-day about it is there other than possibly the frame because it does have a double diamond style frame behind it but check out the rims for a start they are wooden that’s right wooden rims chainset just got one chain ring on there so 1 by so maybe one by is a little bit retro after all I joke though because there is in fact a 4 speed derailleur on here – now the derailleur it doesn’t look like anything which we have modern-day in fact does it in those jockey wheels well there are plenty of teeth on there they are very small and they’re not quite as easily visible as what we have a modern-day equipment but the gear leaver down there on the down tube is actually fixed to the down tube using some twine of all things then it’s also attached to provide twine on here as well I absolutely love this because back then this was the bike that they used all year round there was no special bikes for Perry Roubaix for instance this bike would have been using the Tour de France Perry Roubaix all season long and one of the most interesting things I’ve seen that in his bike and actually baffles me a little bit is there’s a pump peg here on the seat tube which your pump would just slot in there there’s also two pump notes here on the seat tube – so on the front here you can see it’s kind of got a spiked affair and then the upper one he’s kind of spring-loaded in order for the pump to go in there or at least I think it was for the pump anyway now if it wasn’t for the pump make sure you let me know in the comment section down below exactly what therefore I’m pretty sure therefore the pump this is the bike of Wesley Creed who was a cyclist riding for the Dutch team rune pots at the time then what have I picked at this bike what am I going to talk about this well back in 2016 Wesley quitter he was actually part of the team who first used disc brakes in UCI competition and it’s quite hard to think that it back at that time everyone was complaining about the use of disc brakes and competition and two years on it’s actually accepted and everyone just gets on with it I’ve got ya know Rick’s time trial bike here it’s absolutely fantastic I’ve never got up close to any of Yuans bikes first up the crank length 170 7.5 millimeters in length which is pretty long indeed and fitted with a pair of 54:44 chain rings but the frame is probably where I’m really stumped because I’m pretty sure it’s not a Bianchi the celesta colored bar tape here it makes me think that it was used were around the time that he was riding for Team coast or Bianchi whatever it was called back then but I reckon it could well be a Walther which was a Swiss brand let me know in the comment section if you know exactly what frame it is interestingly the ridge dropouts that was kind of like a reverse angled affair and then here on the seat tube where the only water bottle mounts were have actually been removed and then taped over using some insulation tape marginal games yep they were a thing even back then moving forward the handlebars where they’re fitted into the stem you’ve got literally no room for error or adjustment there at all in terms of alignment because there’s no gap either side it’s kind of a fraction of a millimeter so you couldn’t have a Sten with a slightly wider faceplate I absolutely love this and it reminds me of those fantastic times watching the yen cruise round time trials or not really cruise more like smash them also a mafic 3G tri spoke now they stopped making those a few years before I think 2007 when the Amazon this so maybe the mechanics had this tucked away in their service of course and what was really cool about these wheels is the fact that the hub was interchangeable so you can actually use it on the front or the rear and also change it from a cassette style hub as well as a screw-on style and even use it on a tray bike they were really fantastic and interchangeable right I’ve got the bike here of Freddie Martens who is a legend of Rustler and in fact can make the odd appearance here at course and this is his 1975 flans rear bike as you can see the brake levers here are really well drilled out because back in those days components weren’t the lightest an drivers like Freddie will they seeked any sort of marginal game possible so their mechanic there he would have just taken out a drill and just drilled holes in them it worries me quite frankly that people would have done that but presumably there was enough strength in there because obviously it stood in one piece and Freddie well he has got a very good Palmyra’s of results but sadly destroy that campaign you know logo the same has been done on that tool rear brake caliper too which kind of surprises me because there’s nothing on the front one presumably that’s because the front brake is used more often and therefore you just didn’t want the possible failure coming from it after drilling out bits of steel so this is the Eddy Merckx emx five of Tom Boonen from back in 2010 when he was riding with quickstep floors or whatever the team was called exactly back then now a couple of great little features on here which I’ve just noticed is that Tomica back in those days we’re still using these Ambrosio nemesis rims that were rebranded or rebadged if you like as a pair of fast forwards because fast forward back then were the sponsor of the team so naturally they wanted to get the most publicity possible but the tell-tale brass valve surround as you can see here that gives the game away and then also up here mounted onto the front derailleur is actually a home-made chain catcher and I know this for a fact because back in that period quick-step they actually came in stayed and had a training camp in a place where I was working and I asked the mechanic for and and he gave me one he told me they were handmade so that’s one of the originals from back in the good old days a couple of track bikes now first up the bike from Francesco Moser back in 1984 well it doesn’t look that dissimilar to many track bikes you’d find throughout all sorts of countries riding track leagues and such like because well they tend to go on forever and ever but something which have spotted which is really interesting both wheels are in fact laced up three cross servings the spokes cross themselves three times but interestingly the rear wheel isn’t tied and soldered but the front one is so by that I mean that the spokes here are actually wrapped around with a little bit of solder similar to what you would join electrical cables with that sort of thing and then melted now in turn that means that those spokes are slightly more rigid giving a little bit of extra strength when racing but the oddness of the bike doesn’t stop just there now mos’ly pretty tall rider obviously world our record holder at one point very very close to the actual period office and he used a really futuristic looking bike so I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the one he used for it however his crank length a hundred and seventy two point five millimeters long that is long for a track bike that’s generally what you would find on well a road bike under seventy two point five so 165 is the most common ones being used look at this the bike if Elio cares a good friend of mine in fact I’ve raced against him never beaten him in my life but this is Eddy Merckx from back in 2006 at the Rotterdam says Dax so 21 years on it looks a world apart doesn’t it so I’ve just spotted a couple of very sneaky little bits on this so beavin I’ve got one of these at home bought it off one of his teammates around about that time instantly he’s got exactly what I’ve got you can just about see through the paintwork on this that Eastern logo stamped on and also scandium written below so it’s a scandium frame with a carbon fork actually sorry it’s not a carbon fork oh I nearly got in a lot of trouble with that one but now Elio he’s donated this to the cursed Museum and if I look on the rear sprocket on this bike it stamped with KBW piece that’s the Belgian Cycling Federation so he’s given away but if their kits the museum doesn’t matter though now I think it’s super cool these tubular tyres absolutely love them continental Samba class 165 grams there when I was racing on the track for standard you know we all love them and I absolutely love track bikes they’re so simplistic to look at there’s nothing that you can go wrong with like 4 spokes gold bits could look at it all day long and ride it this is a wild and wacky looking bike isn’t it this is Johnny Mears mums bike from 2005 and I would have been used on the track as you can see it’s got a single speed or fixed gear setup there’s a monocoque design frame and a road-going frame I think was called the giant MC r1 and that was designed by Mike burrows him of the Lotus 108 fame that Chris Boardman used famously in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona this bike though obviously like I just said is the track going version so a couple of interesting things I’ve spotted first up is that the water bottle mounts that were here on the road frame have in fact been sort of molded and blended into place to make it more aerodynamic so there’s no rivets sticking up or water bottle bolts nothing like that obviously the dropouts – they’re bolted on and can be changed depending on the discipline you’re using so if it’s Road you’d want something different you could attach a rear derailleur on the tooth now look really closely you can see here that it’s been filled in this area and that’s where a front derailleur would have been mounted that is so cool that’s like a mechanic’s dream to start modifying a bike in such a way and then even more interesting as the fact that some old ritchie SPD single-sided pedals we used by Mears man back in the day no road specific pedals were they are road specific but an SPD pattern which kind of went out of favour in the late 90s so yeah 2005 hmm I do like it that it’s calling this bike next up is a 1960s motor pace bike so if you don’t want motor pacing is it’s where riders right behind a motorbike with a guy stuff in leathers who’s riding it and they ride it extremely fast speeds around the boards or banks of a velodrome now look at the size of that dinner plate that is literally the size of a dinner plate and the chain is actually using it an inch pitch so it’s totally out of the ordinary basically for modern day equipment then the forks well they’re mounted backwards that’s right they are actually mounted backwards in order to have a really short wheelbase so that the rider flesh you tuck in really close behind the motor pacer then we’ve got a bracing system going down to the fork from the handlebar to just to give it a little bit of extra strength and rigidity I love these sorts of bikes we don’t see enough of them because there’s not a lot of motor pacing going on anymore the bike of Fausto copy from around about 1953 an absolute legend of the sport as are all of the bikes we’ve checked out here but this one I just feel I should really bring to your attention first up that’s the rear derailleur mechanism that’s right so this is a Campagnolo design and you would simply reach around and adjust it like so putting it into position I can’t imagine using something like that I’ve never had to but I imagine at that time that was state-of-the-art that was a real bit of cutting edge technology front derailleur from simplex again a handle system so you’d simply move it backwards and forwards like so and riding along now check out this as well that’s mounted onto the brake bridge and this is a flint catcher so when you’re riding along and you get a little bit of grit stuck in your tire when it’s fully inflated and that’s in the correct position that would actually with the force of the wheel be knocked out of position and trying to prevent any punctures which is super handy let’s face it we’ve got a frame mount pump on there too so riders back then they did actually have to sometimes take with them their own tools to fix their bikes water bottle look at that mounted on with quite a complex system of rivets and bolts and bracing systems and of course a cork in the top to stop any fluids falling out you can’t imagine racing about these days like that could you Reynolds tubing – right I do hope you’ve enjoyed this look around just some of the bike collection here at the cus Museum in ruseler I’ve absolutely loved it let me know what your favorite bit of tech I’ve checked out there in the comment section down below also let me know if you think I should come back to check out even more bikes because I’ve not even scratched the surface yet remember to like and share this video with your friends too and don’t forget to to check out the gcn shop at shop global cycling Network calm and now for another great video how about clicking just over here