colino

Thanks in advance for any clues. Regrets for not posting pics - after ~15yrs of reading BF and >10yrs of registration on the forums I've still not amassed 10 posts...

It's student move-out season in my neighborhood, which always means running across plenty of bikes worth schlepping to the coop and usually 1-2 that are worth my selfish time.

Yesterday I found a rattle-canned lugged frame that piqued my interest but that I'm not knowledgeable enough to identify.

• largeish frame (almost 21" seat tube, 23" top tube);
• the numeral 418 stamped on the bottom bracket, in addition to the serial number J085915;
• made for 26" wheels;
• no headbadge, but there's a pair of holes suggesting that there was a badge and it was mounted on the sides rather than top and bottom;
• forged dropouts, but unbranded as far as I can tell;
• double eyelets on front and rear;
• two sets of bottle bosses with the concave-rectangle "studs" (I don't know the proper name for the semi-decorative metal bits);
• top cable guide runs on the top of the top tube rather than off to the side;
• downtube cable guides;
• unicrown fork w/ canti mounts;
• "pinched" chainstays near the bb;
• steerer tube looks like maybe the bike was originally white;
• bearing races look stock and are black;
• seatpost clamp takes a binder bolt rather than a qr skewer
• chainstay bridge is drilled to take a fender;
• no rear brake cable guide brazed near the seatpost clamp;
• no cable guides under the bb, but there's an offset hole that maybe is threaded for it (or maybe it's just drainage..)
• seatstay bridge hole runs perpendicular to the stays, not vertically

Any suggestions as to what this might be?

Thanks for any and all feedback; if I get to 10 posts I'll follow up w/ pics.

T-Mar

J-code serial number suggests either Miyata or Bridgestone manufacture. However, if Miyata, J-code indicates 1981 and Miyata did not offer ATBs in 1981. Assuming Bridgestone, serial number would indicate 1990. This is consistent with Unicrown forks that started becoming popular in late 1980s. It's also consistent with vertical dropouts which gained in popularity with the advent of indexed shift sytems. To corroborate date, check the steerer tube of the unicrown fork for a manufacturer and alpha-numeric date code. Hole in underside of BB shell is almost certainly for mounting plastic cable guide, given presence on cable stop under chain stay.

colino

Thank you, T-Mar! And good call...this was a good reminder that I shouldn't take it for granted that what looks like stock paint == nothing under the paint.

The steerer is branded SPINNER, with two sets of markings:

199C
F-2

on one side and

2022J
11A/13A

on the other.

colino

A couple more details I missed:

1. Integrated derailleur hanger;
2. 130mm rear dropout spacing;
3. I said the chainstays are "pinched," which is probably misleading - they're not dimpled, but rather there's a double bend near the BB.

colino

4. Seatstays don't terminate into the back of the seat tube; rather, they end in concave plugs brazed to the sides of the seat lug.

colino

5. No dedicated braze-ons for rack mounts.

seedsbelize 

And now you can post pics.

T-Mar

The fork info isn't what I was hoping to see. Tange and Ishiwata both used a a two character alpha-numeric format where the numeric alpha character is the month and the numeric character is the year. I don't know what Spinner used, but the f-2 code is similar to the Tange and Ishiwata formats and may represent June 1992. That would be 20 months difference from the frame date, assuming it's Bridgestone, and a larger discrepancy than I'd expect to see.

On the plus side;
1. Bridgestone was still building lugged ATB frames circa 1990-1991
2. They didn't use a cable stop bridge for the rear cantilever.
3. They used the concave seat stay caps/plugs.

Are you sure the top rack mounts aren't on the inside of the stays, instead of on the back? The was a fairly common approach, to make things look a bit cleaner, when a rack wasn't installed.

colino

I'm grateful for all the consideration and thoughtfulness put into sleuthing thus far. I'm not sure whether these images will add clarity.
Looking at Bridgestone catalogs from 1989 onward, it mostly looks like headtubes got adhesive badges or labels, not riveted (but maybe the rivet holes are a red herring?).
I checked the seatstays for inward-facing rack mounts -- good thought, but in this case there's nothing there.

madpogue 

All the Spinner forks I've pulled have a full four-digit year stamped on the steerer. I'll bet that 199C is a mis-strike of 1996.

Okay, this is a stretch, but....

* No "lawyer tabs" on the fork dropouts, but if it's indeed a 1996, it should have some sort of QR idiot-proofing
* On the inside of the fork blade, about 6-8 cm up from the dropout, there's a little round mark. That's where the boss would be for the flip-and-lock QR idiot-proof system used by Schwinn at the time
* Diamond-shapes bosses for the bottle cage resemble those on the early-'90s Schwinns we have
* Seat stay caps resemble those on my wife's '91 CrossCut
* Head badge rivet spacing matches that of a round '90s Schwinn head badge

Some mid-'90s Schwinn?

Can you post an overall shot?

Reynolds 531 

Exactly what I was thinking.

I had one just like that I thought was a"Paramountain", but I'm not sure if really was.

madpogue 

Oh wait, it's lugged. Hmm, that might make it a much earlier frame, like mid-'80s? Or maybe that mis-strike on the fork is for 1990.....

Cimarron? - https://www.bikeforums.net/16882711-post6.html - No, the Cimarrons I'm seeing have rack braze-ons, and are not lugged at the head tube. Yeah, ^^^^ +1, starting to sound like a Paramount / Paramountain.

T-Mar

While the serial number is consistent with a frame manufactured by Bridgestone in 1990, it does not necessarily mean a Bridgetone branded bicycle. Bridgestone contract manufactured frames for a number of brands who still may have used riveted head badges.

colino

So, here's a full shot (w/ a couple unrelated wheels to keep it off the ground and get a sense of standover).

Certainly hybrids Schwinns like the CrossCut had lugged frames for a while (through 1990?), but I don't recall seeing any with that chainstay bend. The couple Schwinns I owned from that era had a Schwinn logo stamped on the dropouts, too (FWIW).

Thanks again. Cheers!

mechanicmatt

Late 80's, Early 90's Japanese. Looks like a standard Tange fork. That said the water bottle bosses are a good clue.

mechanicmatt

1987 Schwinn Cimarron.

https://www.bikeforums.net/sale/1144...-cimarron.html

colino

Oh man, I wish! Head tube is lugged though, and Cimarrons are filet brazed. Plus the unicrown fork on the Cimarron has a nice brazed-on detail at the top that this fork lacks.The Cimarron, at least the one pictured, has seat stay rack braze-ons.

rando_couche

Except that the Cimarron is lugless up front and this bike is lugged all around.

madpogue 

Photo angle is too steep from above (NB: bicycles are on the floor/ground, not at adult human head level) to tell, but your textual reference to "chainstay bends" suggests further that it's a Schwinn. I just picked up a '91 Impact Pro MOS with chainstay bends similar to those of many Univegas from that era - see pic at Schwinn catalogs, 1991 - 2000 (7 of 577) . Or are you referring to the outward bends of the chainstays? Get a horizontal shot if you can; that would help illustrate the frame geometry.
It's not an '87 Cimarron, however, as they had rack braze-ons, and no head lugs.

mechanicmatt

Geez. You all are right, the back end is perfect, star bottle mounts too. It has to be Panasonic made then, but all the mountain bikes from that era had U-brakes...

mechanicmatt

Kuwahara's look similar from that period, but the star bottle bosses aren't there.

Darth Lefty 

Could the fork be a replacement? It just seems less racy than the rest of the bike.

Is there a QR for the seat bolt?

himespau 

Any chance rack mounts were ground off for some weird reason? It is a repaint. It's just odd to have double eyelets on the dropout but no braze on. Or at least weird to me, could have been a very common thing that's part of one of the many giant holes in my knowledge base.

colino

Always a possibility, but I see no strong evidence (finish on bearing surfaces matches, double-eyelet fork dropouts, canti mounts are the same format...).

Nope.

I stripped some paint from strategic locations, and there's no solder residue or surface marring.

colino

Here's a shot that better captures geometry (I don't run across that combination of tall head tube + slack angles that often), plus a shot to highlight that the seat lug is a little pointy at the top, but not dramatic:


Relaxed!


Seat lug is a little pointy, not a lotta pointy...