imabeliever1

When people talk touring bikes, the names, Specialized, Miyata, and Schwinn Voyageur often come up.
My question is, where does the mid 80’s Nishiki Cresta fall in the vintage touring hierarchy?

Thanks

djb

Have bought or are going to buy one?
Internet easy opinions are just that, but I'm sure it rides like other bikes from that period with similar tubing.
Nostalgia aside, these bikes rode well and my slightly later Japanese tourer has a really nice ride, but technology moves on and improves.

imabeliever1

I own one and was just curious where it falls in lineup of similar touring bikes. It rides very well and converted to 700's with very little effort.

djb

a friend of mine converted their old mid 80s 27in touring bike to 700's very easily also, although its still quite easy to find very good quality 27in tires around here anyway.

as per the quality in relation to similar bikes, I certainly don't have enough frame tubing experience to really have an opinion. My 1990 tourer has butted tubes, quadruple butted, Japanese also, and has a really nice unloaded and lightly loaded ride due to how the frame flexes, but it certainly is probably fairly typical of this general era when it comes to loaded up touring in that its certainly more noodly than modern frames.
When Cannondale came out with their aluminum touring frames, this was the big advantage, the stiff alu frame was so much more composed with four panniers on it (but a bit harsh unloaded).
Its interesting how more modern alum frames with their formed tubes really are less harsh than early ones. I have a 90s alum mtb that has a rather stiff frame, harsh to the point that I learned to watch tire pressures, but loaded up with two heavy rear panniers, the frame handles this very well, kinda like the Cannondales.

I used my 1990 tourer loaded up, but would try to keep the weight down, and also was careful of balanced loading, but still had wonderful trips on it--its just when you compare to more modern frames that you notice the improvements.

perhaps you may find more people who know the bike in the C+V section.
enjoy riding it no matter.

BikeWonder

Hard to say. If its mid 80s it would be high mid range for a tourer. In the late 80s and early 90s Nishiki came out with a touring variant of its International Series and that bike was the bomb (identical to the 1000, but not as great) I wish I hadn't sold it. But at that time the Cresta GT would be below it (think 6xx level for the against the 1000).