Originally Posted by cinco

This is the bike from my avatar, my only Belgian bike, and my most confusing bike as well. The brand is "Spect JM" and the headbadge mentions Braine le Chateau, a quick search for which yielded little information other than the obvious - that it's a small town in Belgium with a population of about 10,000. The workmanship is skilled but unrefined - nice even brazing of near-perfect quality but there are no embellishments and certain areas such as the stay caps could have been sanded/filed a bit more. Overall the effect is a bit plain, which isn't enhanced by the medium/short-point Bocama lugs. The basic dimensions are 56.5cm seat tube and 57.5cm top tube, both c-c, and it appears to have been built for 700c wheels. I have no accurate way to measure geometry at the moment but I'll whip up a protractor/plumb bob combination eventually. Based on the above I'd call it a custom build by a small builder who did mainly repairs (skilled but lacking artistry) and identified either as his own brand or that of a bike shop through which the work was contracted. Either way, enough of this brand were built to justify having decals printed, but not enough that another one has made its presence known on the internet during the ten years that I've owned mine.

Where it gets confusing is in the less obvious aspects of the frame. The dropouts and fork ends are eyeletted Campagnolo and the wheelbase is long, with the rear tire gap being quite a bit larger than I usually like. Okay, that suggests touring bike. But the thing that really gets me is the tubing. It's metric (28.35mm seat tube including paint) and completely unidentified through decals or even a mark on the steer tube (other than a stamped "58") but takes a 27.2mm seatpost (measures 27.15 and rattles very slightly in the hole). Perhaps one of the more experienced tubing gurus here can explain that, but I'm at a loss. In fact, my initial measurement of the seat tube struck me as so impossible that I grabbed a better set of calipers (Etalon) and when that said the same I grabbed a known-accurate micrometer with the same result. So for now I accept it as being accurate. That would indicate a wall thickness of 0.4mm and while I seem to remember that some types of crazy hot-rod tubesets had tubes with that dimension it seems suicidal (not to mention completely pointless) to build what appears to be a touring frame out of 130lb-weight-limit time-trial tubing. And then not make it as beautiful as humanly possible.

So it confuses me, and has done so for a decade, but the ride is quite nice and more sprightly than one would expect so it sees a fair number of miles. Because of the weird nature of the frame I decided to hang all of my weird parts on it - some Shimano 600ax and Dura-Ace ax, Dyna-Drive pedals, helicomatic hubset, and the like. I enjoy the mystery to a certain degree, but since I hate a mystery which can't be solved I search for information every year or two with no results. Maybe as a result of finally typing up its story I'll finally try to contact the local government of a certain small town in Belgium and see if they know anyone who might be able to tell me more.