Bike Cottage

Hey all, here's my project for the evening. This has had a terrible repaint (I think the original color was some sort of blue) and there are no decals or headbadge to go from. Here's what I know:

57 cm seat tube, 57 cm top tube
rear brake cable eyelets down left side of top tube, about 7 o'clock if viewed from rear.
Serial number is U20206717
Tioga Expert CR headset
SR Modolo Anatomical bend bars
Kalloy KA100 stem
Exage 500ex brakes and levers
Shimano RX100 Cranks 170mm 53/39
Sachs freewheel 12/21 7speed
Shimano derailleurs RX100?
700c wheels
Rear is Mavic MA40 with Sansin hub (I believe this is original)
Front is Araya VX-400 rim with Shimano 600 hub

Bike weighs 22 pounds as it sits now so it must be reasonably high end. What do you think folks? Have some fun with it.

bbattle

Miyata 912?

Bike Cottage

I think the Blue was original, then someone went over it with Flourescent orange and then Black. I hope these pics give some more clues. Do the Miyata serial numbers look like mine?

Oh yeah, wheelbase looks to be 39 1/2 inches.

realestvin7

I dunno. Looks to be of good quality.

abarth

Looks like a Fuji.

WNG

You need to take photos of the distinct frame characteristics to help ID her....BB shell, seat lug, head tube area, cable guides, brake bridge, fork crown, dropouts, fork blades.
The brake cable guides are unusual due to location. Semi-vertical dropouts, a unicrown fork which usually indicates 89+ model year.

T-Mar

My assessment, based on the serial number is a circa 1992, Taiwanese manufactured frame. Components are a bit of a mix, but the 500EX and RX100 may be original. They're certainly the correct timeframe. It would be interesting to know their date codes. If original, they were typical used on bicycles in the $500-$700 range. A typical tubeset would have been Tange Infinity. In addition to date codes, the OP should check the seat post size and, if possible, pull the fork and check the steerer for a manufacturer's stamp and date code.

illwafer

my schwinn voyageur has the serial in the same spot on the head tube. it was probably made by panasonic, so i would guess it would be either of those.

edit: i've never seen cable guides like that before.

Maddox

+1 possibly Panasonic. Definitely Japanese, and doesn't resemble a fuji to me. Probably later than '85 based on the fork design (assuming fork is original the original).

I, too, haven't seen many cable guides like that. Looks like there was a lot of torching on that side of the bike. Any chance those guides were brazed-on at a later date, or that they weren't original to the bike's design?

Also, is that a hole drilled in the chainstay in the #2 photo in your second set? I know there are holes to let the flux and heat escape during brazing and whatnot, but that looks big, and right in the center of the chainstay...

realestvin7

It's no Schwinn that I've seen. I was thinking maybe KHS?

big_heineken

Doesn't the location of the serial number make it a Panasonic? What size is the seatpost? It has some similar characteristics to my Panasonic, but the semi-vertical dropouts and the rear brake cable guides are completely different.

T-Mar

It's not a Panasonic manufactured frame. The serial number format is incorrect. It's also not Miyata manufacture.

realestvin7

KHS serial on this frame is on the head tube.

Bike Cottage

I'll get some more detailed pics up tonight. I'll also get a seatpost measurement and some more fork photos. My buddy seems to think Peugeot but the only French part I see thus far is the freewheel. I think most of us agree that it is 89-92ish. KHS? Anything is possible. The location if those cable guides has to be the key. Hopefully someone has one of these in their garage. Thanks for the responses so far, I enjoy a good puzzle.

JohnDThompson 

The dropout looks like Gipiemme. What's the BB shell threading?

Bike Cottage

Here are some more pics and a little more info:

Kalloy Seatpost 27.0 mm
Bottom Bracket says 3P-B Cr-mo K-8
BB Shell is 70mm across
Avocet saddle has 1991 date stamp
100mm dropout spacing front
130mm rear
2 bottle cage mounts (one on seat tube, one on down tube)

Frame weighs approximately 2 1/4 pounds completely stripped

Bike Cottage

A couple other things, the steerer tube has 11A/CM stamped into it. What is the doodad that I'm pointing to in the last pic?

well biked

Check your scale for accuracy. It almost certainly weighs at least twice that.

well biked

That's a chain hanger, you hang the chain on it when you remove the rear wheel.

Bike Cottage

Touche'

Upon further inspection, the frame weighs just under 5 pounds, maybe 2 1/4 kilos.

Chain hanger, great idea, how many bikes had that? I wonder.

John E

I was thinking Japanese, as well, until the 70mm BB shell came up in discussion. Has anyone seen any non-Italian bikes w/ 70 instead of 68?

Bike Cottage

Actually, the BB Shell is 68mm, there was a ton of paint and crud on it. Here are 2 more pics. The crescent shape ( or C) is on the inside of both rear dropouts.

Am I correct in thinking Italian?

Bike Cottage

Oops.

T-Mar

A 68cm BB shell, given the era of the components, indicates the most likely candidate for country of orign is Taiwan.

Reverse engineering based on a sample of one is always a risky proposition. 11A/CM could mean several things. The CM probably indicates CrMo. Based on the component mix, 11A could mean November 1991. That would also be a good fit with my original, 1992 suggestion the serial number.

Going back though some period literature, another Taiwanese manufacturer, besides KHS, who used that position for routing the rear brake cable was Giant, though they appear to have used stops, as opposed to tunnels. I'm not sure where they stamped their serial numbers during this period.

Given the era, Im really surprised theere is no embossing on the stay caps, or is it possibly just covered by very heavy paint?

sauze

Not to hijack but ... damn that's a neat frame!