The Mercier Service des Courses Project.

 I have long been a big fan of Pou-Pou 

other wise known as Raymond Poulidor,

you can check out his incredible record here.

So of course this means, I have always lusted after 

one of the pink Mercier machines that Pou Pou always

raced....

While Peugeot PX 10 are thin on the ground here in 

New Zealand, Merciers are pretty well non  existent,

 a Mercier Service des Courses, which is their equivalent

to the PX 10 or Team Raleigh, forget about it.

So I finally had to take matters into my on hands 
and sell a couple of treasurers to fund

 the import of  a respectable Mercier from France.

I wanted one that had the gold Mafac Simplex SLJ groupset, 

which I know is kind of tacky, but what can I say...

Although this model wasn't used by the Mercier team

in the late 1970's, because unlike Peugeot, who where still

using a full French group set, the Mercier team had

finally gone all Campagnolo.

But you know full campy race bikes are a dime a dozen

how many do you see with a full French gruppo?

After a few months of searching one finally surfaced that fitted

the bill, and the owner was very helpful in finding a reasonably 

cheap service to get it here.

The Mercier Service des Courses as unpacked.

And about an hour later....

Ready for cleaning and reassembly, sounds so easy.