Quick question: How the hell do you pronounce...
 

Merckx?

Mer like Mercury

ks for the rest

at least in English.

In Dutch it's different.

I thought the "Mer" was more like 'mare' or maybe Merde. Wasn't he Flemish/Flamand?

I thought he was Flamps so your pronounciation may be correct for Flemish, Dutch's sister.

Having served most of my mission in Flanders, I can tell you that it is prounounced as Creekster suggested, in the Flemish speaking world. I still pronounce it as Archaea originally suggested as I feel like an Alex Trebek wannabe if I prounounce foreign names as they would in the persons home country. While Flemish technically isn't a language all it's own (it's a dialect of the Dutch language) I felt like it was. It took the same effort to learn it as it did to learn Dutch the first time around. At least as far as understanding what I was hearing. They throw a lot of French in as well.

The good news is, I'm fluent in a second and kind of a 3rd language. The bad news is, Dutch and Flemish are both worthless languages to know unless you are on a mission. Oh well.

So it's pronounced like Mare-st?

English: Sounds like "jerks" only replace the j with an m.

Dutch: Sounds like "mare" with ks at the end.

I'm more confused on the pronunciation of Bianchi. In my mind it should be more complicated than bee-on-chee -- of course, I'm also to the point where it registers "Beyonce" when I say it in my head.

And speaking of, did we ever get to see IPU's new bike that was supposed to be under the tree? (If I'm late on this, sorry. A geographical move has kept me away for quite a while.)

I've always pronounced it like "Bee-on-key". I don't know how I got that one in my head, but no one has told me I'm an idiot when I say it out loud.

At least not to my face.

You're correct.

Be on key.

Italian is pronounced just like Spanish in most instances.

I's are like long ees. A's are full and ch is a k.