Custom Wayne Evans Bike recently picked up
 

I was home sick the beginning of last week when this showed up for sale on a facebook site. Too neat looking at too good of a price to pass up. The seller said it was made by a Wayne Evans in Denver in the mid 90s. I haven't been able to find any info on the builder but it seems like a really nice bike with honest battle scars.

It's got some really cool lugwork, paint, and a sweet headbadge. Made of Columbus EL Oversize with three bottle cage mounts and rear rack compatible. Right now it's sporting a Dura Ace 7400 setup mainly. I just got done putting it back together and plan to get a few test rides in before I decide how to proceed with it. Right now it's got a fairly heavy set of wheels and 700 x 32 tires.

If I really like this I think I've got a source for someone who can match and touch up the paint. It's got some pretty serious damage from a dropped chain on one stay.

If anyone has any info on this builder I'd love to hear it.


Anyway, some quick cellphone pics I grabbed when I got done.

https://pbase.com/jhuddle/image/169109337.jpg

https://pbase.com/jhuddle/image/169109338.jpg

https://pbase.com/jhuddle/image/169109339.jpg

https://pbase.com/jhuddle/image/169109340.jpg

https://pbase.com/jhuddle/image/169109341.jpg


Love this headbadge!

https://pbase.com/jhuddle/image/169081544.jpg

Beautiful! Not knowing wouldn't have stopped me from buying it either...

Head badge is Kokopelli.

Yeah, so cool!

There is a Kokopelli Bike company in Cortez, Co that does Titanium bikes. I've emailed them to see if there's any link between them and this earlier bike just out of curiosity.

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Thanks very much for posting this fascinating beauty!

Suggestion - if you can edit your header you might consider adding the Wayne name to it as there is also F.W. Evans of Britain and a third Evans in France.

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A friend was very big in CO in the 90s and knew loads of Frame builders back then. I'll ask.

That is one sweet bike! The intricate lug work is the topper. I sure would like to see that paint/bike in the sunlight. I obviously do not know what you paid for it, but from your post, it sounds more than reasonable. What size is that, out of curiosity.? You are going to get a lot of lookers for that machine.

+1 and would love for it to be a +1 for me :)

OK. I went to British F.W.Evans London Shop in 88, one of the group members bought a bike there for the tour ahead..

England used to have regional shops building their own bikes [Steel F & F], in the back of the shop, selling them in the front.

thats gone now..

F W Evans is well known, but I'd not heard of an Evans in France. I tried googling for it (evans france bicycle -cadel -"evans cycles" -"tour de france", etc), but kept getting irrelevant stuff. Do you have a link (or could you give another useful search term, such as the name of the town where they were built)?

I tried but it doesn't show...

Awesome, thanks! :thumb:

Thanks!

It's measuring at 54.6 cm seat tube CTC and 56.5 top tube CTC.

Built in 1993 to compete in the 1994 Paris Brest Paris according to the original owner.

I got this out yesterday for a 13 mile test ride after knocking out 23 miles testing the Vitus Argal. It was super windy yesterday so hard to tell much about either bike. This one did ride comfortably with what seemed to be stable handling while not being sluggish. I did get on it once and it picked up speed easily. I did have to stop a couple of times to make adjustments. I really just slapped this back together so I could see how it felt under me. So I had to mess with the shifters a bit to get tension right to hold a gear. I'm betting any of my spare wheelsets hanging around with some good 700 x 28 tires will take an easy pound off this bike where it matters. Right now I'm leaning towards using the NOS 9 speed Ultegra triple setup I have on hand to fix this up. This would make it perfect for my long climbing days in the mountains where I can go with only the water I carry for many, many miles. 3 bottle cages will be handy and the old legs would appreciate the triple.

Grabbed this snap out on the test ride.

https://pbase.com/jhuddle/image/169118962.jpg

Beautiful and someone put a lot of soul into that bike, congratulations. :thumb:

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Have never been able to learn anything of Evans of France.

Have a dark green juvenile frameset which appears it may be built for 400A wheel which came with an Evans head emblem.

It is clearly of French origin and is constructed of a metric juvenile tubeset. (i.e. 22.0mm steerer rather than the adult 25.0mm)

Appears it may be from the 1950's.

Have searched the marque at Tonton and at VeloRetroCourse without any hits.

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It does indeed sound very obscure! But thank you for telling me what you do know.

I asked. He doesn't remember the name..

That is one beautiful bike! Congrats jamesdak!!

aceves

Thanks! This is a tough nut to crack, LOL!

Just another update on this one as I continue to mess with it before deciding on the build. The wheels,tires, and cassette on this were really heavy! It was weighing 23 lbs and 1 oz with them. A quick temporary swap to some Campy Eurus wheels I had on hand with a Record 10 speed cassette and Conti GP4000S II 700 x 25 tires dropped it down to 20 lbs 5 oz. Swapping in a preferred Fizik Kurve and Thomson seatpost now has it at 20 lbs 1 oz. That's quite a drop with no carbon fiber involved. Should feel more lively on the road today with the changes.

This is more along the lines of what I expected with a Columbus EL OS frame.

https://pbase.com/jhuddle/image/169142819.jpg

Finally, I found reference to another one even though the info is old. I contacted them to see if they know anything about Wayne Evans they can share.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/ridenicebike/photos/?tab=albums&ref=page_internal

Just to update this a tad for anyone researching these.

Wayne Evans is still an active framebuilder in Denver. I just haven't been able to find contact info. A bike shop there verified he's there and uses them sometimes. They were going to ask him about me contacting him next time he came in but I've heard nothing.

With all the paint damage in the blue parts (really badly chewed chainstay) I finally decided to find someone that could fix some of the paint issues while keep it as original as possible. I drop it off tomorrow. Tore it down yesterday. For the heck of it, I just weighed it. 5 lbs 12 ozs with the headset. Weight Weenies says that headset should weigh a bit over 5 ozs. So that means the bare frame and fork should be around 5 lbs 7 ozs or so.

Once I get it back I have to decided how to build it. Silver components would stand out against the paint but black would help show off the paint. At least that's how I see it. Anyway, that's pretty much all the new info I have on this one for now.

Well, this has been back from the painter for a month or so. All the blue on the backend was redone. Cost prohibitive to repaint the whole thing while trying to maintain the Evans name on it. So I just had the blue done to clean up all that nasty chain drop damage so the frame will be better sealed off against the elements. This morning I finished rebuilding it using parts out of my stash. Dura Ace 7700 BB, cranks, and brakes with Dura Ace 7800 RD and FD. Only FD I had for this with a band on it or I would have stuck with all 7700 series. Didn't even realize the rear was a 7800 until I noticed it as I dialed it in. Went with another Deda stem but with the longer top tube I had to drop down to a 80mm. Was going to use a new set of Nitto Noodle bars on this but the clamp area on them was larger than my other 26mm bars and the clamp on the stem didn't like them. So I used the original bars that came on it. I wet polished the pretty nasty Dura Ace seatpost and now it looks pretty good. Wheels are some Mavics I had laying around for now with a Dura Ace 9 speed cassette mounted, new KMC XL 9 speed chain. Not sure about these wheels may go with something else. I do have a nice set up of tubular rims with sweet Veloflex Vlaanderen rubber sitting in the wings now. They might be nice on this.

I'll take this out for a short shakedown ride after I get my real ride in today. Always have to tweak a bit out on the road despite things shifting well at the house.

20 lbs, 11 ozs as pictured so it gained a bit of weight. That's usually the case when I switch from DT shifters to modern STI ones.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...90a33e0a58.jpg

Still hacking away at getting this suited to a purpose. With the 28mm tires on it and now a Brooks saddle it may replace the recently sold Ventoux as my main century ride. Still not happy with the bars. I wish I had put on better ones when I rebuilt this.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...5cf801028e.jpg
Gained another 1/2 pound with the Brooks. The cages match up better in natural light to the naked eye than they do in this picture.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...2c2c2ecf37.jpg
I've got "oil slick" bolts for the bottle cages that accent the tricolor of the frame really well. Little touches....