onre

Apparently some of these ended up in US as well, so let's try to gather some information about them. For me they're particularly interesting as the Professional is one of the two "serious" road bikes made by Finnish manufacturers back in the day, the other one being the Helkama Kuningaskulkuri featuring a welded Reynolds 531 frame with internal reinforcements.

Tunturi is a traditional Finnish bicycle brand founded in 1922, the brand appearing in bikes first in 1926. Skipping a bunch of largely irrelevant history, let's move on to the era of our target, the Tunturi Professional. I don't know the exact year of introduction but it's probably not far from 1981. All parts were outsourced - I'd guess the only Finnish-made part on the bike is the front badge. Nothing wrong with that, though - as I mentioned in previous paragraph, by then the Finnish bicycle industry had managed to produce exactly one serious road bike frame model.

There are at least three different frames used. Let's list them:

1) an Italian (?) lugged frame with Columbus Zeta tubing
2) a Japanese lugged frame with Ishiwata tubing
3) a lugged aero frame with oval tubing

I've seen three different colour schemes so far. My own bike, type 1, is painted red with white markings. Another variant of 1 is painted in a combination of silver and black, also with white markings. Also, I've seen a white type 2 frame with green markings on Ebay.

Parts-wise these seem to vary a lot. Some have had full Arabesque Shimano, mine looks like it has been ridden a lot and has ended up with a mix of 600, Golden Arrow and Altus. Also, it has an obviously non-original Campagnolo rear hub with high flanges and round holes. The stem, handlebars and pedals are SR Sakae.

If you have one or know something about these, please do share. I'd particularly like to know who made the Columbus Zeta-tubed frames. I'll post pics as soon as I can.

Prowler 

Mr. 66

I think of stationary bikes when I hear Tunturi.

onre

So, here's mine. I ended up with this more or less by accident. I went to the LBS to get a shifter cable and walked away with this, 70 € poorer.



Mismatched tubular rims, Shimano Golden Arrow rear derailleur, Altus levers and front derailleur, Maillard 13-18 freewheel, Campagnolo rear hub, Shimano front hub, Shimano 600 cranks, brakes and 42-52 chainrings, SR Sakae stem, handlebars and seat post.

For some unknown reason the top tube and handlebars both had sticky remains of glue from adhesive tape here and there. While removing this, I accidentally removed most of the original markings, too. I thought they'd be decals under a layer of lacquer, but apparently this wasn't the case as they wiped right off with acetone.

As usual, hubs and brakes came apart and cables were replaced. Rear tyre was glued on the rim so that it had a bump at valve, so I re-glued it successfully, yielding a much more round rear wheel. Bottom bracket was indexing a bit but I figured that I'd take care of it later. I replaced the stretched chain, but unfortunately the Maillard freewheel sprockets had already worn to an incorrect shape. It was rideable if you took care when shifting and didn't use the lowest gear.

Even with that defect, with this setup I rode a few hundred km's in a couple of weeks, including a group ride where we did a 100 at 28 km/h average speed.

After that it was clear that the transmission situation had to be addressed, so I ordered a new Sunrace 14-25 7-speed freewheel. I installed that, readjusted the derailleur and it worked perfectly. Also, 42/25 is a lot easier uphill gear than 42/17. Here's how the rear looks now, pic taken today:



A couple of weeks ago I decided to open up the bottom bracket as I finally had the necessary tools. Turned out it was beyond repair. The bearing surfaces had lost their shape. As the bike is quite far from the original setup already, I felt like I'm not doing a crime by installing a BB-UN55 bottom bracket, so I did exactly that.



Here's how it looks today. The pedal straps are more or less done for and a more period-correct bottle holder wouldn't hurt. Also, I'm waiting for the rear tyre to wear out to have a good reason to buy another Competition for the rear. That won't help with the rim colour difference, though.



Here's the Finnish-made head badge - as said, probably the only domestic part in the bike.



A worn-out sticker with a bird and Italian for the finest gas pipe tubing.

Plans for next winter include stripping down and repainting the frame. There are rust spots here and there but nothing serious, luckily enough. The bike is always stored indoors so the rust doesn't have much chance of progressing during the summer.

onre

I just noticed the rear brake release is open. No wonder it felt kind of powerless...

onre

So, the local library got me a copy of the 8/1982 issue of Tekniikan Maailma. They had a sport bicycle road test, defining a sport bicycle as something with clinchers, wheelbase less than 103 cm, weight without fenders and racks less than 11 kilograms.

The road test included the following bikes:

• Bianchi Sprint 80
• Crescent Competition 12
• Dawes Echelon
• DBS Super Sport
• Helkama Kuningaskulkuri
• KTM Formula S
• Motobecane Sprint
• National DX-3000
• Nishiki Road Master
• Nopsa Finntour
• Peugeot Super Sport
• Pohjanpoika
• Raleigh Giro
• Tunturi Professional

So, regarding our mission of figuring out the history of these things, in 1982 the frames were already Ishiwata. Here is the component listing:

• Frame sizes 53, 57, 60, 63
• San Marco Concor saddle
• Shimano 600 EX bottom bracket
• Shimano Altus LT front derailleur
• Shimano Altus LT rear derailleur
• Shimano low-flange QR hubs
• Weinmann rims
• Shimano 600 EX sidepull brakes
• Weight 11,2 kilograms
• Tubulars as an option

Apparently the previous model has been covered in the same magazine, issue 12 from the year 1979. So, this means two things: introduced in 1979 at latest, and I need to make another trip to the library.

MauriceMoss

@onre - don't know if you made it to the library but I do have a scan of the Professional review in the 12/1979 issue of Tekniikan Maailma.

The article doesn't reveal who the manufacturer is, only that the frames were made in Switzerland of Columbus tubing (doesn't specify which tubing).





So, the Professional model goes back to at least 1979 and they were made in Switzerland (at least at that time).

Kent T

I'd consider Shimano 600 front and rear derailleurs. This bike's worthy of that level of equipment, even if the Columbus tubing is the economy version. I like this bike, it is nice and beautiful. In my area, Tunturi exercise bikes are what we saw.

onre

I actually did visit the library, just didn't write an English referate yet. What's also interesting is that in the same issue they write about Leopard, a road bike with a Finnish-made lugged frame. I did some further digging on these - apparently a few dozen were made.

Thank you! I quite like it too, and getting 600 derailleurs and levers isn't a bad idea at all. It's a fun thing to ride.

Road Fan

As far as I can read it, Google Translate says "carbon steel bike draw tubes" or "carbon steel bike drawn tubes." Plus, in this picture the seat lug edges look extremely sharp and the lugs look very thick - not enough filing? Despite the described enjoyable riding qualities, this does not strike me as a really high quality frame. Not to say it isn't sound, but it's not made for the pro peleton. I can't draw any conclusions nor would cast any aspersions on other Tunturi frames.

Still, with the forged dropouts and fork ends it's not dismissible as "just some gaspipe junk." Carbon steel tubes could be supplied in different wall thicknesses, so it's possible for there to be hard, rigid gaspipe frames and more supple ones. Compare a Peugeot UO-8 to a 1970 Raleigh Record, or a Schwinn Varsity.

onre

It was an attempt at humour. Gas pipes are thick and heavy, and Zeta is the second-cheapest Columbus tube set - 0,9 mm throughout as far as I know. Actually the Finnish-language article in the magazine criticizes the frame for the exact same thing - not enough filing.

This and the later Japanese frame are the only attempts of the original Tunturi company at producing anything even remotely lightweight. Their usual frames are really thick welded tube with Dutch-style geometries.

onre

Did a 200 km brevet with this setup. Water bottle and spare tubular missing from the picture. The route included some gravel as well, which was rather interesting with 22 and 21 mm tyres.

onre

I got a parts bike with interesting alloy clincher rims - they have a concave profile. So, I had to try if the 35 mm Gravelking SK would fit the Columbus Zeta frame. It did.



I've had a more appropriate bottle holder for a long time already, just haven't gotten around to actually installing it.

T-Mar

Zeta was Columbus' bottom of the road line tubeset. Introduced circa 1980, it was only available for about 5 years. It was plain gauge carbon steel (i.e hi-tensile), though drawn to a relatively light gauge for the alloy and era. Zeta was typically used on club racing models in the upper entry level.

The Tunturi Professional that I've seen are an oxymoron. They are anything but a high grade bicycle. The frames exhibit mass production workmanship and the combination of tubing and components would place them mid-range, at best. The geometry was relatively relaxed and more recreational sport than competition oriented.

onre

Isn't it an universal rule of thumb that if something says "professional" on the packaging or the product itself, it usually isn't?

voor9

Got three of these back in the days and one newer one, celebration model (blue/white forks). These older ones drive much nicer than the strange curved front fork version from the 2010's. The story goes that this was originally designed and made for Finnish skiing athletes training bike back in the 70's. Idea came from the chiefs of Finnish skiing association and they contacted with Tunturi on the subject. This bike was Tunturi's the top of the line bike 'till early 80's. They had ofcourse Retki Super, which were almost identical in some cases with these, but had mud covers and rear rack.

I asked from Tunturi about the truth behind the story, but no-one remembers excactly anymore whether it was true or not. Oldest one I've got from year 1978, and it was not, or it's frame number, found from the factory's archives (archive starts from 1980). But they knew what parts were used for those earliest ones and mine had just them exactly.