drRex

I recently purchsed a vintage Mondia road bike from one guy who is living near me and is repairing bicycles as an hobby. Usually he puts quite ordinary old city bikes out to sell, but last saturday he displayed a vintage Mondia race bike that immediately caught my attention. The bike is itself in good shape, both estetically and mechanically, so given the fair price he was asking I bought it.
I know little about vintage bikes, so please could I have some help in dating it? I estimated the bike to be of the late '70s
A link to the pictures and some feaures of the bike are listed below

https://goffredo.ch/foto/SuperMondia

Details are as follows:
Serial number: 331687-7
Frame and fork made from Reynolds tubes.
The badge on the head tube has the Super Mondia logo on it, the decals are black with white shading.
53/42 crankset, 6 speed freewheel (14-16-18-..-..-26).
Brakes are marked "Weinmann type 730".
Hubs are marked Maillard and rims are also "Weinmann".
The whole shifting system is a Shimano Suntour.
Saddle is a later addition I believe, the handlebar it's Kusuki and the crankset it's Sugino.
Additional cyclocross brake levers (given the huge span width between frame and tires I suspect that it might have been a cyclocross bike)

Thanks for any help.
Rex

blaise_f

Obligatory: fork looks not-straight. That aside, looks like a pretty neat bike. Lose the turkey-levers, lengthen the front cable and add some cages, IMO!

unworthy1

Yes it's a Mondia, but it's nothing like the Mondias we usually see in the US. This is a pretty run-of-the-mill bike with middling tubing and components: it's not "bad" but nothing to invest a lot of time or money in. If you want a nice looking "beater" to cycle around on, it's perfect...but no racing or cyclocross bike. I think it might be mid-to late 70s but you can trace the date codes on the Japanese components using Vintage Trek's website...it's in very nice condition, at least.

randyjawa 

You can get a good idea of the bicycle's vintage by applying some of the ideas in How Old Is My Bike? As for your Mondia, lovely bicycle and I am sure you will like it. Had my Super Mondia Special been a wee bit larger, I would still own it...

drRex

@blaise_f: double-checked the fork this morning, it's straight (it was just an effect of hoe the bike was leaned on the wall in that picture). I agree about the front cable and the cage, might keep the turkey-levers though.

@unworthy1: Thank you for suggesting the Vintage Trek's website! I'll check it! I was suspecting that the components are not high-end: the Shimano Suntour group was a strong hint at this (no fancy Campagnolo components). What I was looking for since years (rather passively, however) was a vintage race bike (earlier than the '80s) in a fairly pristine condition with no need of any major overhaul before riding it. Most important of all the frame needed to be big enough for me (I'm 186 cm tall), which is apparently not obvious for older bikes. I will just try to find a new saddle if I can.

@randyjawa: I had already found your homepage while looking for information before posting, your Mondia looks very nice indeed. I understand the problem with the frame size (see above). I will carefully check your How Old Is My Bike? page, there is a lot of interesting information and nice links there!

PS: Came to work with her this morning, very nice ride. :-)

drRex

Thanks to everybody for the answers: by looking at the links you posted I was able to make an educated guess about the production year of my Mondia.
Both tubing as well the decals style would place this bike at the very beginning of the '80s. Indeed, according to this site SMS tubing were produced only during a short timeframe (1980-1982) and the Mondia Production Timeline indicates that the down-tube decals color changed from white to black in 1980.

A couple of further questions. There are braze-ons both on the front and on the back fork (see pictures)
https://goffredo.ch/foto/SuperMondia/Immag1714
https://goffredo.ch/foto/SuperMondia/Immag1715
Anyone knows what's their purpose?
Thanks
Rex

spm40

The braze-on on the front fork is for a bottle dynameo .

drRex

@spm40: I've seen from another thread that you own a very similar bike. Did you came to the same result when you tried to assign a year to it?
I think that the webmaster here may be interested in your serial number to relate it with the production year.