KCRunning

I just aquired an old zeus track bike. Looks like it's from the mid to late 70's... components are very similar to campy neuvo record stuff. I'm wondering if anyone knows how to pin down the model year for these bikes.

merlin55

Zeus was a Spanish parts company that made stuff that looked like Campy Nuevo Record, JUST LIKE Campy Nuevo Record....I not sure that they made bike frames...maybe they did. I had an old Andy Gilmour track frame in the early 80's and it had some Zeus parts

kpug505

[QUOTE=KCRunning;7935713]I just aquired an old zeus track bike. QUOTE]

Pics or it didn't happen!



Well......Since Zeus was one of the only companies that not only produced parts but frames/complete bikes you might be best served to look at some catalogs online or maybe search Velobase for your components to nail down a year. Zeus Frame with Zeus parts........It's very likely it was bought that way complete.

oldbobcat

Zeus made some very nice bikes in the 70s. Friends of mine had a fine inexpensive road bike made of butted Durifort tubes, and another had one of Reynolds 531. With complete Zeus gruppos, of course.

jeffieh

Fabulous bikes. I've got a blue 76 Zeus Pro in Vitus 971 tubing. Incredibly light for the 70s. The Zeus Criterium rear derailleur is a work of art and Zeus 2001 dropouts are so elegant it's ridiculous.

texraid

I bought a new gold Zeus in 1973, wonderful bike and I wish I still had it. If I am not mistaken Zeus was the only company that made everything from frame to components. Below is taken from Classic Rendezvous:

Bonafide players in the world of cycling for many years. The company succumbed to market forces in the early 1980's but produced, especially toward the end of their business life, some of the most exotic components of the era..
"Zeus was founded by Luis Arregui in Eibar, Spain in 1926. That makes the company about 10 years older than Campagnolo. Arregui held over 105 patents, and the great catalog was published in commemoration of him after his death. Luis Ocana was able to win the Tour de France for Zeus against the practically unbeatable Eddy Merckx in 1971. Zeus was the only company in modern times to build a complete professional bicycle (frame and components)."

I've never seen anything on date codes. Zeus headsets can still be found on higher end bikes likes Orbea and I read somewhere the company was bought out but I can't remember by whom.

unworthy1

there's also a "relationship" between Zeus bicycles and Rezesa: my understanding is the Razesa did some of the frames for Zeus.

Numberfourson

My Zeus Professional was purchased new in 1973.
I'm finding it difficult to find parts that predate the Criterium and the 2000 . I know they are out there somewhere.
I'm looking for Super Alpha brakes to replace the originals that developed a crack at the pad mounts.
Enjoy your ride !

juvela

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On the brakes your searches will likely go better if you spell Alfa correctly.

There is a spanish classifieds site that regularly offers Zeus cycles and parts at prices lower than eBay.

https://www.milanuncios.com

Others are discussed here:

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-...-site-in-Spain

The road ensemble which predates Criterium is called Gran Sport.

Road ensembles can be confusing as each time they launched a new one they did not have a full new group to fill it out. It would be partially stocked with fittings from the previous group. This holds for the transition from Gran Sport to Criterium, from Criterium to 2000 and 2000 to Superchronos.

Just to confuse things, there were also lower tier product groups such as New Racer.

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verktyg 

The people on the northeast coast of Spain were working with metals when the cave dwellers of Vicenza were still chipping flint!




Kidding aside, the Basque area of Spain, home to Zeus bikes has been a center of metal working as far back as the bronze Age.

Zeus has been traditionally cursed with the image that they made cheap Campy knock off components. Some Zeus components like their headsets, hubs and pedals were far higher quality than anything produced by Campagnolo in the early to mid 70's.



We sold a few Zeus bikes from the early 70's to the early 80's. They were always a hard sell because of their image of being cheap Campy knock offs (and not holy, sacred Italian made) but those bikes offered a whole lot of bang for the buck.

The easiest way to date your bike is to became familiar with the components and then go from there.

verktyg

old_dreams

If this Zeus had been a bit bigger I probably would have picked it up when it came up for sale a few years ago. Complete Zeus groupset. In pristine condition.

circa 1984 I think