RaleighSport

seems a pity, I like the chrome bits. Umm hey while I actually have your attention, where do you want those Centurion date codes/serials? I can post the date codes, but I'd prefer not to publicly post those serials.

illwafer

your lugs are way different, as well as the chromed "socks". mine also have fastback stays. it is also drilled for TRIPLE water bottle mounts on the downtube.

i meant chromed head lugs + plain seat lug.

i have no idea on the year, or if it is even a windsor...although i suspect it is. i'm in san diego, so it could have been a one-off or modified. the tubing was very thin (no rifling ie columbus).

"6172" stamped on both the fork and the seat lug.

william_b_noble

I bought this bike from Hans Ort cyclery in the 70s (Hans was apparently a famous bike rider too) - the only changes were the addition of the rack and replacement of the cloth handlebar covers after they deteriorated. The part about Merckx is what I was told when I bought the bike - it is certainly set up for competitive riding, which is one reason why my wife didn't like it.

T-Mar

OK, adding plain seat lug makes a big diference. The serial number, its location and the seat stay style do suggest Windsor and the the steering column sans ridges, in conjunction with a painted seat lug do indicate a Super Carrera, but those touring fittings do not. Best candidate would appear to be a Windsor Super Carrera modified for touring.

c_bake

Here is my Carabela, sister brand to Windsor, its a 1979 based on the date codes stamped on the stem. It also has a serial number on the seat lug. The frame is Tange 2 but I'm not sure what model it is, however, I think its a Super Carrera based on the higher end components that came on it. I wish there was more info on these bikes, the non gas pipe versions seem to be very nice.
For whatever reason, maybe the geometry, I don't know, this bike is very fast and responsive...its my go to vintage steed, I often choose it over my carbon race bike.

illwafer

c-bake,

awesome. a very fine bike.

how did you find out the frame was tange #2? was there a sticker?

c_bake

Here are the original decals, I had JR Restore make new ones, I haven't put them on yet, I kind of like the stealth look.

Mercian Rider

I owned a Pro for a few years when I was in high school in the mid-70s. White with chrome head lugs, as I recall. Bought it cheap from a classmate--$150 sticks in my mind. I liked it but it was a bit small for me, so I ended up selling it. For me the allure was the Campy brakes, which I had not yet obtained for my Mercian.

seedsbelize 

I just happened to be there again today, and the Windsor was still there. Todo Tierra or some such. Not only were the front dropouts formed by crimping the fork, but the horizontal rear ones as well(with the opening to the back, where the screws are). It had screw adjusters on the rear ones. No headbadge, but was indeed Méxican. And in really bad shape.

bobstad

My '73 white Windsor Carerra Sport came from the bike store in the Fairhaven District of Bellingham; purchased the summer of '73 while in a 90 day USPS student "temp" job for college students unionization of postal workers has since scuttled. I'd been in a rented room in a student household while at Evergreen College; of mostly Western Washington University students organized by someone also distributing the Socialist Workers Party newspaper whose bulletin board ad for a rented room at the WWU student union I responded to finding a place to live while I worked here.

The bike came as an encouragement by a housemate with a $600 Mondia who had touted the $150 Windsor Carerra Sport effectively to me; my second adult bicycle following a black Schwinn Racer with 24" wheels given me as an eleven year-old which got me through high school. Those Windsors were the inexpensive model they produced then; sold with an option of clincher tires instead of sew-ups I chose which I also added blue plastic fenders to as well as a generator light; and eventually front & rear carriers. The housemate as one sort of "right of passage" I guess; got me to coast with him down the Alabama hill just after that was recently paved, telling me we'd be going 60 mph once we got to the bottom.

I was a real slouch with my poor first Windsor; knowing nothing of maintaining a bike I ignored until ruining the first set of wheel bearings. Then I got serious about caring for the thing; managing an interesting cross-country ride May of '79 covering four thousand miles in a month pedaling as well as hitch-hiking with 1400 miles on the nifty mechanical odometer on the front wheel by the time I'd reached my destination. By May of '80 I was living in Ojai, CA where I met retired Mexican national bicycle racing team mechanic for ten years Segundo "Angel" Rodriguez and his wife living in their motel court like apartment with a garage where did repair work on bicycles smoking Camel straights whose wife explained his nickname for his sterling qualities of character, as a second brother.

The Carerra Sports came with Sun Tour front & rear derailleurs and a Sugino crank set in the bottom bracket. The two front sprocket gears were close in ratio while the rear sprocket had a larger low gear than many bikes; not a problem in my youth though now my current Windsor Carerra Sport has a three ring Bio-cam front sprocket the original Sun Tour derailleur works well with, and with a rear sprocket of five gears from 28-48 teeth also operated by the original Sun Tour rear derailleur. The Carerra Sports also came with Sun Tour stem-shifters and hand brakes with center pull levers I removed; doubtless on the advice of my friend with the Mondia.

Segundo Rodriguez told me the history of both the Mexican Windsor and my own Windsor Carerra Sport. The Mexican factory was an Italian one imported to Mexico; while the Carerra Sport was a copy of a French design. I think the bike was made as a touring bike; with a short wheel base to handle more quickly. I soon became a terror on the streets of Bellingham adept at weaving in and out of traffic amongst cars and trucks; probably in no small way influenced my my post office job, which after a lazy morning delivering the mail in the Fairhaven District then a split shift with a three hour break nearly always enjoyed swimming at one of three places excellent for the purpose in nice bicycle distance from work; I had to pick up the mail drop and transfer boxes in Fairhaven and downtown, a heavy schedule requiring me to always exceed the 35 mph speed limit on State Street coming back to downtown from Fairhaven each day at 60 mph to be on time, never in the least a problem with the law.

The Windsor Carerra Sport I ride now; has a seat sold me for $3 at the only yard sale ever done at Arcata's Revolution Cycles; while the Bio-Cam front chain-ring was given me by one of the bicycle mechanics in Arcata's Adventures Edge wilderness outfitters and bicycle store. After wearing out the original seat cover I was sold a fine piece of leather I covered the seat with for $20 I got thanks to a friendship with shoe repairman in Eureka Bruno Ravelli, though after his retirement at a downtown leather shop whose owner/operators had also known Bruno and made an effort to come up with something good while telling me how to use that best. The rear carrier is a Blackburn from a mountain bike frame I noticed tossed in someone's front yard in Oakland, CA riding by on an earlier ten-speed I had then; I asked to carry away, going to the home owner's front door to see if this were okay.

The mountain bike frame seemed a good one while the smallest gear on the front sprocket looked well worn; so I'd sort of tried to see what I could do about perhaps locating the owner from the serial numbers on the bottom of the bottom bracket, though too much a chore while also a homeless "vehicular resident" with a rented $50/month garage to store my things in behind an apartment house on the Oakland/Berkeley line on Alcatraz just west of Shattuck Avenue, sleeping in a $600 '75 Chevy panel van from Spokane on the street.

The front carrier a Vetter is another $3 item from that same Revolution Cycles yard sale in Arcata, with a broken weld repaired by a small hose clamp; where I also got for half price the bike's generator light set-up brand new in the box I think one of the last generator light sets produced, another industry stupid idea doing away with those imho. The fenders are some damned brand I'll have to stand a moment to look at to be able to tell here what those are, Zefal; an excellent design for simplicity of attachment as well as durability costing $27 new. The horn bulb from a dollar store horn the bulb reattached at the stem of that with superglue after being nearly torn off, now is on the other side of the handlebars replaced by a circular rotating button bell along with an Air Zound pump-up air horn from a half-price close-out sale at Fanatiks bike store here, great for terrorizing five year-old boys walking with a parent or parents, a sibling too perhaps, riding up from behind; I soon was out of the habit of feeling guilty about the second time that happened if funny to see the little fellers nearly leap out of their socks, now more deft with that thumb control-so fun using stationary or nearly so to signal people of myself, as an obvious exhibitionist type goofy character; I've never found useful as this is supposed to be in traffic, for alerting automobiles and such of one's presence.

The stem-shifters are Sun Tour too; with vaguely mountain bike type hand brake levers, good ones, about $10 from a sale in a bike store on Telegraph west of the Oakland Greyhound station, operating the original Windsor Carerra Sport brakes. The hand grips are stiff black foam ones made for BMX bikes I've sliced the perpendicular to the handlebars stiff round collars off of with a razor blade; which make long rides comfortable to one's hands, once a person is used to them. I've also four east German army surplus, gear bags of some sort built lightly weatherized in green camouflaged pattern heavy rubberized cotton is my guess, from Anglin's, a second hand store in Eureka also selling military surplus, for $5 each; which are awaiting an already well thought out plan, to adapt these as panniers. The pedals sold for $3 the pair used in a Colville, WA second hand store; with bike store close-out bin strapless toe clips.

The only real modest hitch with the bike is the front carrier & fender; making carrying the Carerra Sport on a front of a bus bicycle carrier not quite feasible exactly as those are designed, since most of them I've been using have a clamp which fits over the top of the bike's front tire on most bicycles that only comes up to about one o'clock on the Carerra Sport's front tire; which hasn't yet been a problem though one bus driver alerted me to the fact they thought or knew could happen, which is that a particularly severe bump could jar the bus carrier clamp off of my bike's front tire easier than one without a front carrier and front fender. Thus, I have a heavy rubber trucking strap attached to the rear carrier whose hooks on either end reach down long enough they can be attached quickly to the bus bike carrier frame; certainly as adequate if not a whole lot more so than the front wheel clamp even on a bike with no carrier or front fender.

One thing to watch out for if a person has a Windsor Carerra Sport in the state of California whose frame has been painted over, and/or if the Windsor decal is missing on the headset; is that any bike whose make and manufacturer cannot be identified is considered by law as contraband. That sure threw me for a loop momentarily after I'd fixed up my unrideable $20 flea market find nicely as described here including seat, lights, fenders, upright handle bars, & carriers by that point; and taken the thing to the Eureka police station to get the bike licensed. I was lucky though and found a local bicycle store owner who'd sold those Windsor Carerra Sports willing to certify in a legal document I still have, that my bicycle is a Windsor Carerra Sport or I'd of been screwed badly, to say the least. I recognized the bike easily as a Windsor Carerra Sport, amongst lots of old bikes in various states of disrepair; being sold by a man at the flea market, who specializes solely in bicycles and bike repair. I guess I was pretty lucky; as the chrome socks on the rear frame stays and on the front forks, with the chrome frame lugs, all are very recognizable.

I remember Segundo Rodriguez once he'd gotten my first Windsor Carerra Sport functioning well for me whose rear derailleur had always been hard to operate previous to his attentions, told me to treat my bike like my toothbrush; I loaned to everyone I knew, their friends and then a friend of a friend who using my bike to go to work washing dishes at an Ojai bowling alley restaurant where someone didn't like him, got my bike driven over by a four-wheel drive pick-up which I later was able to salvage parts off of since stored in a local bike shop's warehouse. I'd been going driving the '66 VW "square-back" sedan I lived out of most of the time we were together from '82-'94 from Ojai to work in eastern Washington state doing orchard work picking apples one fall; so left the Carerra Sport with a woman friend whose boyfriend rode track bikes from LA to Ojai, who'd let the guy washing dishes use my bicycle. The dishwashing man was nearly a youth also obviously impoverished, who'd been sick about what happened to my bike; though unable to do anything to mollify me about such a loss, I'd been pretty upset about.

If anyone is interested; the Arcata Bicycle Library rents lots and lots of older bikes many from the same era as my Windsor Carerra Sport, for $20 every six months; all of which are made to function in only one gear, though many, many of them are excellent old bicycles any person a rider and/or an enthusiast would prize in their original condition with all the gears operable. I got into an argument with one of the people running the place an obvious ******* after not too deep into our conversation; trying to tell me my bike's not a Windsor Carerra Sport. Pedaling between Eureka & Arcata I often did while living in Eureka; one day along the US 101 six mile stretch between the two California coastal towns, I found a brand new CROWER CAMS sticker alongside the road; so used a portion of that upside down on the headset, turning my bike into a MO I guess anyone can do with whatever damned bike they feel like. I still can't see the sense of the conversion of 27" wheels to 700cm ruining interchangeability between the two different era bikes; for a miniscule difference, between the two? No doubt people have noticed, there are some sick people running the world.

bobstad

Definitely a Windsor Carerra Sport; identical to my white '73 as far as I can see. Exactly the same as the painted over Carerra Sport I have now, too. I'd forgotten the decal on the down tube below the seat.

bobstad

Fooey,

I was trying to upload my photograph, editing that in my first post, the long one; so that would appear better than the thumbnail?

Like the red frame Windsor Carerra Sport frame I commented on, which is the post before this one. Can I do that somehow?

That's the only photo I have of my bike, without the resources to readily take a better picture; unfortunately.

bobstad

"chrome socks" is a kooky perhaps wonderful thought, as a term I'd been unfamiliar with; since buying a pair of "toe socks" on sale from a bin of those at the Rite-Aid where I get thirty 5 mg hydro-codone a month I've been doing since December of '07 for chronic pain management from a foot problem May of '97 "the meditator's injury" a woman working at the Oakland Community Macrobiotic Center called that she recognized done sitting on my heels in a yoga posture-the drug also useful due to some back problems, too; of atrophied musculature I've solid evidence is easily overcome given proper resources difficult to come by, as of just now at least I've been aware of since November of '86. My "toe socks" are a lavender pair and a rainbow pair; like normal socks only made as if gloves, for a dollar a pair.

"Liberate your feet daily from the unventilated prison of shoes" is a Selvarajan Yesudian koan from one of his books about yoga; so now I'm trying to apply that to riding a bike one of my friends lesbian radical feminist Heather Bricklin another musician/writer who never wears shoes; does barefooted on her mountain bike, even pregnant seven & eight months November and December of '07 working as my IHSS care-giver in Eureka, CA four hours once a week, at the age of forty-two herself as a "size 8" single parent of three adult children by then also-who has supported herself and those progeny busking playing guitar while singing, she has told me.

Then doing only IHSS care-giver work shunning better paying jobs, who with state budget cuts since may've lost much or all of that source of livelihood; she did/does for ideological reasons as a moral self-commitment: IHSS/In Home Supportive Services, California's often embattled program for low-income elderly and/or disabled people to be able to keep their own residences rather than being forced into more expensive care facilities, Republicans label "incipient Socialism" -which makes a person wish they knew what they were talking about.

Someone hired from my ad in Humboldt county's alternative currency every other month freebe want ads newspaper distributed at select locations; seeking an IHSS care-giver. We talked on the phone about the job about a year before we met, who'd also asked me to become a sperm donor gratis; so don't ask me how women do these things, right?

Yesudian was my teacher Mady Sharma's yoga teacher, a woman I had nine class lessons from the spring before I got the first Windsor Carerra Sport; as part of Evergreen College's leisure education workshop free to work/study students; I did with a friend Alan Kessler from Brooklyn, I remember with a white Peugeot UO8 he was enthused about he'd managed to pick up used; my first lover Tina Blade encouraged me to do then whose dad Walter owns Blade Chevrolet in Mount "vermin" Vernon, WA, while we were active in the "California handshake" aspects of our love affair.(MV an otherwise cool place; home to right-wing pundit sleaze *** scum bag Glen Beck-as a Dave Beck fan of sorts here myself, the Teamsters Union labor organizer focus of a Hollywood movie about his life)

I'm not as much of a dynamo as Heather by a long shot, probably perhaps; so am now trying to shop around for some sandals which would be good riding the second Windsor Carerra Sport with strapless toe clips I call those, really something like a toe clip made without straps. Called Mini-Clip from a bike store close-out bin or similar I forget where or when; similar to these items.[https://deltacycle.com/accessories/to...ess-toe-clips]

I've looked briefly at the sandals for sale at the large Fred Meyer here in town, without seeing anything striking me as too promising; while having in mind one pair I'd seen someone a woman wearing which caught my eye, I have no idea where, when or whom recently in my travels? Less a ventilated shoe than some of what I'd seen near the Fred's sandals; which looked like running flats more or less with mesh screen windows. Sort of a high-top sandal with a good rounded toe and other aspects which looked well adapted to my needs; as well as probably not all that pricey also nice for more general use.

kroozer 

Illwafer, I'm sure that frame was modified and repainted. It's probably a Super Carrera, very similar to the Pro but with Tange tubing, Suntour dropouts, and non-chromed seat lug.

obrentharris 

Here's my Windsor Pro. (soon to be for sale)









Brent

rootboy 

Brent,

Super looking bike. Brings back memories. BTW, I just noticed while fooling with my rim stash the other day that I still, somehow, have one Windsor branded tubular rim, even though the bike is long gone. I liked that bike.

1987

Distinguishing a Cinelli from a Windsor, a Photographic Comparison
https://cinellionly.blogspot.se/2011/...m-windsor.html

RaleighSport

Sadly my sport had been in a major accident and I wasn't willing to try frame repair myself, so it has moved on probably to a new home.

Obren: That pro is gorgeous!

prozko

..

fishboat

Just joined the forum and did a search for Windsor Pro. In 1980 I purchased, and still ride, a Windsor Pro. All Campy, Columbus double-butted SL tubing. Mine was originally silver like the one above. Shortly after I bought it I had it stripped down and painted a clear prism metal flake over plum color. Had the components anodized black (never seen back then..but somewhat common today). I put a Concor saddle on it too. I paid $600 for it (new).

T-Mar

Black anodizing became a high fashion statement in the mid-1970s, Campagnolo used black chainrings and derailleur pivot castings on Super Record. The cages on their SL pedals had been black anodized since circa 1971. Then Shimano carried things further with black Dura-Ace, which had black calipers, hub shells and shift levers. It had died down by 1980 but periodically comes back.

eschlwc

that's interesting. can you elaborate on that decision? like, was the original paint bad to begin?

i ask because this '80 windsor touring elite i purchased last year was also resprayed (a silver/blue fade) by the california shop in which the original owner acquired it.

fishboat

I remember the black Dura-Ace, but I don't remember any other black components at the time. I'll agree.. ..all black Campy Record and Cinelli bars & stem..total fashion statement.

fishboat

Nice ride.

Why the repaint? I was a kid, had a good job, and 20 year-olds like to scream "I am unique!" Except we all looked the same back then..jeans, long hair, and a couple joints in our shirt pocket. Today all the unique kids wear hoodies...and they all look alike.

Anyway..I ate and slept bikes back then and wanted the bike to look how it felt to ride...so I came up with a plum & yellow color scheme. I had a local..somewhat famous hot-rod painter do the frame. He showed me a plum color chip and I said, "that's it!". I found out years later the color was actually an original paint/color offered on the AMC Gremlin car (cough!). Oh, the embarrassment. I painted the Campy & Cinelli lettering in with a brush and wiped off the excess to leave it as you see it above. I did the scrolling in the handlebars too(looked awesome), but it's long since flaked off. The bike is still my main sport-day ride. It's always been fun.

Two more thoughts..

I bought the bike from Patio Bike Shop in Milwaukee. About 2 years after I bought the bike the shop owner called me and offered to buy it back for what I had in it. Apparently the cost of the Campy groups had gone up in price to a point where he wanted to buy the bike back. I didn't sell.

I ran into an old guy (like me I guess) last summer while riding. I stopped at a park pavilion for water and this guy couldn't stop staring at the bike. Finally he walked up and said, "what is that?!" I told him... He said he recently traded a Catholic Priest a new laptop for a Cinelli the Priest bought new back in the 50's. The Priest couldn't ride anymore and needed a new computer. The Cinelli was a '56 I think in kind of a limey-gold color. All original. I haven't seen it yet, but plan to soon.

eschlwc

^ thanks, fishboat. welcome to c&v.