T-Mar

I'm guessing that they never came with the catalogued wheels, which also spec'd new 600EX hubs. I suspect that these bicycles were originally slated to be assembled by Velo-Sport and that they rec'd just too good a deal on the complete bicycle from Miki. That would explain the deviating from Wolber rims to Araya. The downgrade to Suzue hubs may have been to create more of a discrepancy between the Prestige and Super Prestige. The catalogue was printed in late 1984, as it has a 1984 copyright, so it may not have reflected the finished product under the "desciptions are subject o change without prior notice" disclaimer.

I'll post a scan of the photo tomorrow but the spec sheet is going to be a real pain. It's one of those double fold-out inserts, 2' wide, and everything's printed on a single line. I'd have to do multiple scans, cutting and pasting. Frankly, it would be a lot of work and I don't think that it would be practical given the limitations of the site's new photo hosting.

Scottybigs 

No need to scan the fold-out! Especially since the specs of the bike that ended up selling in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1985 deviated so far from the catalogue.

Thanks for your help, T-Mar--I'm hoping that this thread will serve as a good resource for others who are thinking about buying a Prestige. Given that their frame specs deviated so wildly between the years, it's really tough to nail down which model year one might have. They really masked it all with maintaining the 600 groupset.

With the frame tubing going from Tange Champion No. 2, to Tange Mangalloy, Tange 1000, Tange 900, and then a nameless plain gauge tubeset--really shows some of the sad, behind-the scenes business decisions being made. Cutting quality while maintaining the same price to the consumer, no doubt.

As I also have a Sekine with Tange No.2 tubing, I wish I had my hands on one of the earlier Prestige's!

Scottybigs 

Here's a catalogue scan that I got from bertinjim, which I believe was for the 1984 model (just before the new Shimano 600EX groupset came out). You can see that it had 700c Araya rims (with 600 hubs) at this point, but the frame was no longer Tange No.2 and instead had Mangalloy tubing.

herbergeur d image

T-Mar

As promised, here's the 1985 catalogue scan.

Miele Man

The bicycle i most regret selling was my gorgeous salmon colour Velo Sport aero tubing (unknown to me tubing) frameset with a complete Dura Ace AX groupset. The shifters mounted on the top of the downtube. I'd love to get another of those frames in either 22" or 23" size.

Cheers

misterkeeper

I have a Velosport Mirage with a Serial Number M1M55676. It is pretty close to your sn.

Hummer

Hello misterkeeper,

welcome to the forum.

I would suggest that the model name of your Velosport bicycle is Image and not Mirage.

Edit: From the serial number the frame was made by Miki of Japan. The first digit 1 is for the year of frame manufacture, 1981.