Zieleman

You're right, it's difficult to distinguish... I actually thought it was 9259 or 09259. Maybe we should contact John about it.

rideone

hi.

i have an RIH frame with serial 7057. i purchased it on ebay a few years ago. the original light blue paint was covered with either rattle can or house paint! i only decided to take pictures post paint removal process. the frame is now bare and will be more or less restored, though since i have no idea what color scheme it originally had, i may just do it custom. it is sadly too small for me (55cm).
it has long campagnolo rear dropouts w/ hanger. 2 top tube cable guides, and two stops before the BB. other than that no other braze ons.

great resource btw!

non-fixie 

Thanks, rideone. Welcome to the unofficial RIH owners club! Nice frame. Those lugs are very pretty. We don't get to see many of that vintage. Mid to late 50's is my guess. It would be really nice to see it restored. What are your plans with it?

Zieleman

Wow rideone, that's a nice one! I say KLF-red or light-blue with white RIH decals on bottom- and seattube. I know parts of that vintage are hard to find, but you'll manage!

Good luck rebuilding,

Cheers

RobE30

I've got to find one of these. I have a birth year bike, now I need a proper ancestral bike. What is the threading on them?

rideone

BB thread is BSA. there is sadly no fork. I have to double check the seattube diameter, but i think it is 27 or 27,2. I assume Reynolds 531 tubing. If anyone has pictures of color schemes from that era, I'd love to see some. I need some inspiration. My original plan was to do contrast headtube, to bring out the lugs a bit more, and seattube (similar to Mercian). But yes, light blue is the direction i am heading.

unfortunately, the previous owner drilled the downtube for water bottle cage. i'm also thinking how to approach this misfortune. a) braze on correct fixtures or b) fill the holes.

non-fixie 

There are some examples of RIH's from that era to be found on the internet, but from the 40's to the late 60's this was pretty much the way they looked decal-wise:



The chrome was an (expensive) option. This is my own example from late '48, early '49, but as you can see there's not much difference with the '65 bike in post #2. Just the three colored bands: two on the seat tube, one on the head tube. And the absence of chrome of course.
Lots of pre-70's examples I've seen were this metallic cherry red. One of them, #5589 had a white head tube, a white panel on the seat tube and slightly different decals. It was on wooljersey.com, but that site has somehow vanished . IMO lining the lugs is a much better (and classier-looking) way to accentuate them. Other popular colors were metallics as well, blue and green. Gold seems to be the color for the really ancient examples.
I would fill the holes in the down tube if I could. Bottle holder braze-ons don't belong on a frame of that vintage.

Zieleman

Wow, that is a really nice example! Is that dust I see, Maarten?

I mean: late fourties, djeez! This frame deserves its own website.

non-fixie 

DUST?

Well, the paint has faded considerably in some places; you can see the 'imprints' of the shifter band and pieces of tape and such. I've managed to bring back some of the original luster by a little light polishing, but I'm reluctant to go all out with the industrial strength compounds because I want to leave some paint on the frame as well.

rsoffar

I recently acquired a RIH, serial number 80183 (i think the 3 is kinda hard to make out). Any ideas of year?
Its a track frame in a pearl white with kinda a seafoam headtube. Its in pretty beat up condition but I needed a new get around town bike anyways, a bike shop gave me the frame and fork for free. Apparently it was a customers bike they dropped out of a stand and dented the downtube a bit. Obviously for free i dont care and its the perfect amount of beat up to lock up and stuff, super stoked to have stumbled upon a bike with such a rich interesting history.

non-fixie 

Hello rsoffar, welcome! Where is the serial number located? Do you have any pictures of the frame? That would help enormously.

rsoffar

sorry for the cell phone pic. The serial number is on the front of the bottom head tube lu.g I built it up so i can start riding to work tomorrow, the only thing changing will be the bars, I have an old set of red line risers going on there once theyre back in my possession.

non-fixie 

That looks like a proper RIH. Gongrats, nice gift! # 80162 was recently sold on ebay, and claimed to be from 1980, which could very well be correct. I would guess that yours is from the same year.

pullup

Here is what nr 8919 looks like.

non-fixie 

Updated the listing in post #1.

Vanlerberghe

I have 2 red RIH's 'super course' with serial numbers 344Z and 261Z
Can anyone help me with the age of the bikes ? The guy who sold them to me thought they were both '67
thx

non-fixie 

Welcome Vanlerberghe! Two RIHs, great catch. By the look of the serial numbers they seem to be both built by Fongers in 1966. I'd love to see some pictures.

EDIT: I've added the Fongers date coding system to post #1 .

Vanlerberghe

I already thought so myself. I'll post some pictures soon
grts

non-fixie 

Your post made me realize that I hadn't yet posted my own Fongers RIH in this thread, so I dug it out tonight for some pics. Here's number 217T, built in 1969. It was in terrible shape when I bought it, so I cleaned it up a bit and made it ride-able. The paint is OK, but the chrome is flaking badly. Luckily my camera is not very good and hides it pretty well.

Harm Dommisse

This one is mine. It got number 8762. Don't know which year it's from. Found this one in the garage of my girlfriend. She bought it 7 years ago from someone in Amsterdam and never driven on it. The previous owner bought it for his son who drove it on the piste. It's a total mess up of parts. sora, 105, 600, dura-ace 7410. I want to get all 7410 on it. Found allready some parts.

non-fixie 

Welcome to C&V, Harm! And thanks for adding your RIH. Interesting. The serial number suggests seventies, but it looks a lot newer. A rebuild maybe? Some more (detailed) pics would be nice.

Harm Dommisse

Got it for 2 years now. Replaced the saddle and some parts. Before that my girlfriend had it in the garage for 7 years. So know idea how old it is. One thing i know it was almost new when i got it. As fare i know it was only driven on the piste by a young boy.


Respraying could be a option a it has a Reynolds renovated decal.

non-fixie 

Thanks, Harm. Based on that Reynolds sticker I'd say it is indeed a seventies frame, that has had a complete refit ten to fifteen years ago: new fork, extra braze-ons for water bottles and a new paint job. Done by RIH? I wouldn't be surprised if it was. Seems those Reynolds stickers were not given to just anyone.
Great catch!

Harm Dommisse

I live in Amsterdam and it came from Amsterdam. As fare i know RIH only repainted RIH frames. I looked the Reynolds decal up and the one on the RIH is from 1989-1994.

I'm planning to replace all parts to Dura-Ace 7410. Most parts on the RIH are from that group. It matches also the date when it was rebuild.

non-fixie 

Good plan. Looking forward to the 'after' pics!