76SLT 

You guys are always a wealth of knowledge. I'm going to need tires asap but I've never had tubulars before and I don't know what size the bike takes. There's no markings on the rims or tires. I know they're about 1" wide, that's all. What tires do you all recommend for casual riding?

76SLT 

Right again.

exmechanic89

Very nice bike, OP. How much did you pay for it? If it were mine I'd prolly buy a decent used set of clinchers on CL, but also keep the sew up wheels.

1987

Världsmästarcykeln = "The World Champion Bicycle"

Yes they earned it. Harry Snell became world champion in 1948 on a Crescent. After that Crescent milked it very hard. So much that "Världsmästarcykeln" just became a name that most people don't think of it's meaning or history. And as many of you probably know, Crescent was originally an American brand.

verktyg 

We sold Crescent bikes in the early 70's. They offered a lot of bang for the buck.

I think the inference in the ad above that Crescent was producing stainless steel frames in the 1960's is a bit misleading. We first saw them in 1974 and sold a few until 1976.

Only the 3 main tubes were 304 stainless steel. The forks and stays were Reynolds 531. All of the BS about frames "going soft" was a bunch of marketing hooey! Because the stainless main tubes were thin wall straight gage they provided a smooth ride, definitely not stiff.

Also they used silver for brazing the 3 main tubes because brass doesn't work well with 300 series stainless steel.

We only stainless crescents we sold were the all Campy (with Mafac brakes) XX model. They weighed the same as the Reynolds 531 framed Crescents.

The 21", 22" & 23" sized frames weighed about 21-23 Lbs. with sewups which was normal for high performance bikes from that era. A few Crescents had Super Vitus 971 frames. They weighed maybe half a pound less.

Orange Pepitas were the most common Crescent performance models. They made a few white ones plus we sold 1-2 powder blue bikes too.

My friend who owned our shop rode 23" bikes. He tried a stainless Crescent XX and a Pepita model 320 for a few months each before putting them back in the showroom for sale. They had short top tubes - lots of toeclip overlap.

Earlier this year I picked up a Pepita frame just to round out my collection. I'd forgotten how poorly the cosmetics were on the Crescents back then. I doubt that they even had a file at the Crescent factory!

BTW, Crescent handed out some posters for the back rooms of bike shops with a buck nekkid au naturale model.

verktyg 

During the early 70's we had one of the SPECIAL Crescent posters with the same model buck nekkid in the same pose. It hung up in the back of our shop.

Here's another version:

Scooper

Mea culpa! That's what I get for quickly scanning but not really reading the ad I posted.


The ad quoted the world team champion from 1967, 1968, and 1969, and I thought he was riding the stainless bikes during that period.

juvela

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Thanks so much for this information and for sharing these catalogue pages Verktyg!

Greatly appreciated here.

Found the 1973 catalogue page for the Crescent model 319 slightly surprising.

Recall that in the early '70's Dennis Stone sold a Monark badged 319 which was differently kitted. It came with Stronglight 93 chianset, Stronglight V4 headset and Campag NR gear ensemble. Perhaps @styggno1 may wish to comment...

It was the Campag NR gear ensemble on the OP's machine which caused me to mistakenly think it a model 319.

rootboy 

Good to see you posting here again, Verktyg. But...I wanna see the aforementioned Special posters...;>

76SLT 

I've certainly gained a lot of knowledge about my new bike in the last 24 hours thanks to all of you. I did a little polishing of the paint and it really brightened up a lot. I wanted to throw some wheels from my other bikes on there and try it out but it's raining today so it will have to wait.

obrentharris 

You have a winner there!
Regarding your question about tubular tires; some of us love them. You can search for several threads on this forum about them and learn the opinions of many others. The biggest pluses are that they are lightweight and that high quality tubulars have a great ride... However, high quality tubulars generally are going to cost you $80 or more apiece. In my own biased opinion the ride quality of less expensive tubulars is no better (and sometimes much worse) than clinchers in the same price range. The biggest drawback to tubulars is that they are more work; more work to install them and much more work to patch them. The problem of patching can be alleviated somewhat by using the sealing compound that is made for tubeless tires in your tubulars.
Brent

76SLT 

I think I've decided to stick with tubulars for a couple of reasons. I want to keep it original, and I want to keep using the Campy hubs too. If the spokes don't clean up nicely, I may think about new wheels.

Here's a pic of the only markings on the tires.

juvela

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When new, tubular tyred MCB models were usually fitted with Canetti tubulars.







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T-Mar

The workmanship on the seat lug is atrocious. They didn't cut the cinch slot in the seat tube all the way to the bottom of the lug slot and they didn't bother to drill the stress relief hole in the tube. Even the stress relief hole in the lug is far from centred.

Prowler 

I'm loath to disagree with you Tom, but I also hesitate to condem the workmanship. The seat lug on my 74 319 looks the same, as does the one Chas showed in post#30. The relief hole is not off center, it is lined up with the edge of the slot. I cannot debate the benefits of this vs centered on the slot but it is done, intentionally. I've seen it in woodworking and timber framing - stress relief holes for wedged joints. Maybe this method was common practice in Sweden at the time.

And I don't know that the lack of a hole in the seat tube is an issue as there is no slot cut into the seat tube. Again, was this a botch or was it intentional? I see three seat lug assemblies that look identical. The Swedes are world class Engineers.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the workmanship on my Cresescent. Not high end elegance but I don't think that's what they strived for. Maybe they targeted more pragmatic riders who wanted a fast, light, well handling, race worthy bicycle that would carry them for decades. Mine is over 40 years old and doing just great. It went 30 miles yesterday. Continues to be more capable than I am.

noglider 

Crescent bikes be damned. Thank you for the pictures of the women. I enjoy them.

thumpism 

Dude, you're in the city. Last time I was there, there were women all over the damn place. Go outside!

noglider 

You got me there. There are more single women than single men here, and I'm not shopping around, but I do have eyes.

seypat

I have a 72 320 which Juvela helped determine the particulars on a few years back. There is no stress relief hole in the ST. I don't think there is a relief hole in the headlug/TT junction either. There is something small/metallic that is in the TT. It is stuck there for eternity and will roll around if you invert the frame. The lug relief hole is centered, maybe a tiny bit off. The cinch slot is only cut about halfway into the relief hole circle. There is a single hole on the left seatstay. The lug in the picture appears to have a single hole on the right seatstay.

thumpism 

While overhauling the headset on my RB-T I dropped one of the tiny balls which went right into the hole to the top tube. Couldn't do that again if you paid me. I just dribbled some Elmer's glue into the hole and tilted the frame until the ball rolled into it. Let it set up and no more noise. You can probably pull the seatpost and access the top tube that way.

76SLT 

I took a drive up to Yellow Jersey in Wisc last sat and they did a great job setting me up with new tubulars and some new gears. They did it all in less than 2 hours. Great people at Yellow Jersey. Very knowledgeable and helpful.