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Curious about a Concorde's origins

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Curious about a Concorde's origins

Old 12-28-19, 09:55 AM
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jamesdak 
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Curious about a Concorde's origins

I swear I had a thread about this here but can't find it now. Maybe I didn't.......

I picked up this frame a couple of months ago but research and asking around has not given me an answer on the frame as to who make it, what tubing, etc. I found a Diamant bike with the same paint scheme, logos, and "Blitz" decal. I know Martelly built some Diamant's so I asked Eddy about this frame. He said he didn't but thought it was made of Columbus SL tubing. Seattube is smooth all the way down and seems to take a 27.2 seatpost. The fork steerer tube is smooth also. So this part is confusing. SL is 27.2 while Aelle is smaller. SL has helical ridges in the fork steerer, Aelle doesn't. Looking into the top tube from a whole in the seatube I can't seen any ridges in the steel either. I don't have the proper tool to pull off the BB so no idea yet what thinks look like there. The rear dropouts are Ultech. There is a 56 stamped on the bottom bracket as well as 3E and serial numbers. It appears to take a press fit BB cable guide. I've picked up a couple and will use which ever seems to line up best. The frame/fork weighs 7 lbs 4 ozs with the Mavic headset and bottom bracket. Maybe some issues with the BB as the Mavic BB seems tapered and not fitting well. I saw issues with that and the headset before I got it but just figure on getting them properly faced as it's built up. Anyway, just curious like normal and wondering what others know about these. Right now I'm thinking about using one of the Dura Ace 7700 groupsets I have on this.


The frame itself as I got it.

BB, I wonder if the 3E stamp some how identifies the tubing.

Ultech dropout

Looks like some kind of decal was removed. Denatured alcohol takes the yellow paint right off.

Cut out lugs

Does seem like a correct matching fork

This was pushed down deep into the seat tube. I thought it was a homemade shim at first but then it's obvious it was there when the frame was painted because that yellow paint mark matches the slot in the seattube.
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Old 12-28-19, 10:56 PM
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So Roberto Billato just responded via Facebook that they did indeed build this. Asked if he knows the tubing type and hopefully I'll get a response on that too. This means I'm up to 9 Billato built bikes in the house. I think I owe it to them to make the 10th one an actual Billato badged bike....if I can ever find one.
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Old 01-05-20, 09:21 AM
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So I ran a cheap borescope camera down the seattube and the steerer. No signs of any raised ridges, Without any in the steerer tube that pushes me to think it's Cromor or Gara or the like. Earlier I saw what looks like a seam in the steerer. With the borescope I could see what looks like a seam to me going all the way down the seattube also. So while I don't know if you can see the seam for Cromor tubing I suspect that is what this is made of. Seems a bit strange to have both chainstays chromed on a Cromor bike as well as the internal top cable but not unheard of. Gonna do some research but if anyone knows for sure that you can see the seam I'd be happy for the confirmation. It's like two lines about 1/8" apart with "texture" in between them. Runs the length of the tubes. I should have grabbed a pic while I had the setup going.
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Old 01-05-20, 11:08 AM
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We had Concorde in Canada, until the very late 1990s. My recollection is that the Aelle model was called the Colombo, the Cromor model was the Astore and the SL model was the Prelude. Other Columbus models included the Squadra (SLX, TSX or Genius depending on the era). I don't believe we got a Gara model but I've seen Stelvio and Mistral models listed as being tre-tubi Gara and Gara. I don't recall seeing a Blitz.

Aelle and Gara typically take a 26.8 seat post. 27.2mm typically indicates a Cromor or higher grade, assuming it is Columbus per the decals, but I'd also expect to see helical ridges in the bottom end of the steerer tube. However, once oversize (1-1/8") steering tubes started being popular, the larger diameter sufficiently increased the stiffness that Columbus dropped the helical ridges in the oversize steering tubes. While Cromor is welded, the seams are very hard, if not impossible, to detect. Cromor is welded as a billet, which is then cold drawn, which makes the seams far less visible.
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Old 01-05-20, 07:40 PM
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^ Thanks for info T-Mar .

I wonder if maybe it's Thron? That matches the seatpost. I found this Diamant Blitz bike that looks a lot like this in terms of the paint job. It's been the closes bike to this I have found even though there are some differences. This is made of Thron.



I also stumbled on this set of decals while researching. But they also have similar ones for other tubesets.

Thron Decal set

If you look at the one Concorde picture of the top of the BB there that area on the down tube with paint missing and some adhesive. Looks like maybe one of those Made In Italy decals could have been there. I found some charts of the Thron tubeset but they don't show the fork steerer.
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Old 01-12-20, 04:01 PM
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Concorde/ diamant

Hey, i hava a simular frame but a Diamant in Colombus Neuron tubing with exact paintscheme, it has chrome lugs and a stamp in the upper richt botttembracket marked NEURON...if you want i will mail you some pics . Im about to build it this week so let me know
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