Hajo

Recently I have acquired a Vitus 979, but after googling my head off, I still can't tell when it was made. The frame number is E059607 with a 130mm rear spacing. So that leads to believing it is a late '80 frame. Who can provide me more certainty?

easyupbug 

This is one of the best sites I have found, some conflicting info but an excellent and sources listed:https://on-the-drops.blogspot.com/20...vitus-979.html
When you sort it out, please post photo and you findings.

Hajo

Whoh there is a serieus amount of information to be found there, I had visited this website before but never really took a good look at it, digging all the way to get my answer.
As I understand now, it has to be a pre 1986 bike because it has the earlier style seat post binder. Also, unraffeling the serial number :
E = 1985
05 =1985
9 = september
607 = the 607th frame build that month
So it has to be a 1985 bike. Also noticed a groupset I had never seen, Mavic 1000 DSC, that seems to fit this bike very nicely. I intend to maybe put Dura Ace on it, but I might have to step out of my comfort zone for this.

Jmpierce

I also have been searching for the "born on date" for my Vitus. After reading the article, your bike is an 85 I belive and mine is an 86. Great article with much more information than I've found in the past.




Mine is mostly built up with Shimano 600 components. Serial #E064737

alexihnen 

I don't have a good photo at the moment, but I have a 979 with serial # E050095. I guess that's 1984. It's a Campy SR build.

Hajo

I still have to pick up the frame, but I can't match a mid '80s frame with a 130 mm spacing. But I think the seller has mismeasured it, or at some point in its life the frame has been modified.

Cyclist753

..

scarlson 

Not knocking Mavic, but it sure is expensive! And building out a Vitus 979 is just like eating a Reeses cup: there's no wrong way
I'm slowly swapping components for the "American CNC" theme on my Vitus. Hi-E hubs, Topline cranks, Scott Superbrakes, American Classic seatpost, White Industries BB.

top506

Roger that. Still looking for a seatpost and pedals for my 'tout Mavic' 979.

Top

Chombi1 

I wish you good luck trying to find those two items at a "reasonable" price. I've been looking for years for both of them in NOS condition, to complete an SSC group, but never found any that even came close to being reasonable for what they are.....

T-Mar

I haven't collected and studied Vitus serial numbers but I have I do have some familiarity with serial number formats. It seems unlikely that they would have two separate year indicators. If there is a month indicator, it is likely the first two numerals. The 'E', assuming it is a year indicator, could represent anywhere from 1983-1985.

easyupbug 

Exactly, why I said some conflicting info, I have been watching for this for years and found confirmations and also mismatches like a 979 frame with something like E09xxxx. Wish I spoke french.

Hajo

Since the article stated that the framenumbers started with a letter indicating the year (A = 1980, B=1981, C=1982 etc) I might have made a mistake and my E-numbered frame is from 1984. But then the rest of the numbers does not make sence ... the search continues!

Harper.mc

I recently acquired a 979 from someone that may not have known what they had. I certainly didn’t until I started researching it. I actually found the same article everyone is referencing before I found this forum and was equally confused. My bike’s serial number is E064740 which seems to indicate it was made in ‘84. This is backed up by a few other characteristics mentioned in the article. We could make an educated guess if we knew what their monthly production was at the time. For example, did they make more than 999 units in a month. If so, a three digit frame number wouldn’t cut it. Anyway, I’m pretty happy with this bike. Can’t wait to get some real seat time on it.

James1964 

Has anyone conclusively deciphered Vitus 979 serial numbers? The great article about Vitus linked above seems to offer two conflicting ways, one uses the first letter and the second uses the first two digits. I suspect the latter is correct as I have Vitus 979 with serial number E112836 and the "Evolution" fork. The first two digits would indicate 1991 (1980 + 11) and the "Evolution" fork was introduced in the 1990s.

Chombi1 

Only thing I know to base on whether it's an early or late 979 is the style of the seatpost lug clamp.
Vitus changed the the seatpost clamp to the one with a center jamb bolt and the special Rubis seatpost with a flat area machined on to it's back side, after owners started having seatpost lug cracking problems with the old design.

fricker61

I'll jump in here, having recently gotten a Vitus 979, and trying to sort out the age of it. The information from Peter Kohler's excellent piece (https://on-the-drops.blogspot.com/.../the-peugeot-px-10du...) confused me at first, because I THOUGHT he was saying the letter at the beginning of the serial number somehow related to the year the frame was made. Now that I've poked around the 'net for a while, and seen a number of the bikes on here, clearly that isn't the case. So it would seem the key would be the first two numerals for the year, and the next digit being the month. With a serial number of E099259, it would seem I have a frame built in September of 1989. The frame has the later style seatpost binder, which started somewhere around '85 or '86, and it also has the pump peg, which Kohler says began circa '89. So that all makes sense. The puzzling part for me is that the components are Shimano 600EX from 1986. So, I'm guessing either the original owner bought the frame in 1989 and swapped over the parts from another bike they had, or perhaps the '89 frame was a warranty replacement for a somehow defective '86. I'm still puzzled about the leading letter, and what it might mean, as the majority of bikes I've seen online seem to start with E, and I've seen at least one earlier frame listed here with an F, so clearly it's got nothing to do with when it was produced. Curious.

fricker61

I'll revive this thread, having just bought a Vitus 979, and doing some searching to determine its age. The information from Peter Kohler's excellent piece (https://on-the-drops.blogspot.com/.../the-peugeot-px-10du...) confused me at first, because I THOUGHT he was saying the letter at the beginning of the serial number somehow related to the year the frame was made. Now that I've poked around the 'net for a while, and seen a number of the bikes on here, clearly that isn't the case. So it would seem the key would be the first two numerals for the year, and the next digit being the month. With a serial number of E099259, it would seem I have a frame built in September of 1989. The frame has the later style seatpost binder, which started somewhere around '85 or '86, and it also has the pump peg, which Kohler says began circa '89. So that all makes sense. The puzzling part for me is that the components are Shimano 600EX from 1986. So, I'm guessing either the original owner bought the frame in 1989 and swapped over the parts from another bike they had, or perhaps the '89 frame was a warranty replacement for a somehow defective '86. I'm still puzzled about the leading letter, and what it might mean, as the majority of bikes I've seen online seem to start with E, and I've seen at least one earlier frame listed here with an F, so clearly it's got nothing to do with when it was produced. Curious.

scarlson 

We have a whole thread going about decoding Vitus serials here.

The theory that a date code is in the serial number on these Vituses has been debunked in post number 9 of the linked thread. We are pretty sure the numbering is just ordinal, starting with the start of production, and we believe E stands for English threads, F for French, and I for Italian threads. The pump peg is a good identifier. I like that. I wonder if this Kohler character is right about the date the pump peg came along.

fricker61

Thank you so much! Now things make a bit more sense. I added some photos and info on my Vitus to the other thread.

Peter Kohler knows a lot of stuff about bikes, but nobody is infallible. Overall his piece on the Vitus bikes is really useful, even if he's got the dating thing wrong. And his piece on the Raleigh Lentons is one of the few sources of info on that series of bikes. He's also just a nice, helpful guy, in my experience.

Tim Fricker
Vienna VA

Chris 979

I found the on-the-drops.blogspot (authored by Peter Kohler) a document to be a great reference for this bicycle and the impact it had on the market, and the sport itself. Peter’s efforts and insight are much appreciated.

I have acquired a Vitus 979 last year, and started a restoration process as I had a great frame, but it had a frankenstein equipment not matching the 80's or the type of bike at all.

This document was essential to my pursuit, and I used the method provided to decipher the actual year. My serno started with E063xxx (one letter, followed by 6 digits)...

I deducted that this frame was E (A->80, B->81, C->82, D->83, E->84, F->85)from 1984... but then the 06, would indicate a 1986, and the 3 would be March, the xxx indicating the number of bikes produced that month...

So there was a problem with the deciphering, the letter AND the first two digits could not be the year. . . if not the year, was what is the letter representing ?

I proceeded to look at all Vitus bikes I could get a serno from, and ebay was a good source for that. What I could not find was any other letters used in the serno besides: A, E, F and I...

.. and here is what I believe based on the answers I got from people owning 979 with serno starting with letters E, F, or I: E stands for English Bottom Bracket, F for French Bottom Bracket, and I for Italian ones.

So what does the A represents ? Simply the first production frames that were produced with a french bottom bracket and before they produced other types of bottom brackets (this is my hypothesis, and I am still looking for validation on that point).


Now, onto the remaining digits... Sorry Peter, but I do not see how the two next digits could represent the production year and the following digit representing the month of production within the year.


Simply put, a friend of mine purchased a new Vitus in 1988, and the serno is already E103xxx. The deciphering approach was breaking down again.

Now onto the month coding. First, as mentioned in a post earlier, you need two digits, so it should be 01, 02, 03.. to 12, or if they use the next two to represent double digits months (from 10 to 12), it would drive an extra digit in the overall serno size (9 digits for bikes produced in Oct, Nov, Dec)... I have not seen any serno on a Vitus 979 frame with more than 1 letter (A, E, F or I), and 6 digits (123456). Never 7 digits, meaning that 3 months of the year could not be encoded in the serno.

Now, let's assume that the 3rd digit in the serno is the month, it leaves only 3 digits to represent the production number in this month. What do you do for frames 1000+ (again, the production volume was over 15,000 (possibly 17,000 frames in 1984, which means you have many months were more than 1000 frames were produced)... So this is another reason why this encoding approach does not work...

I believe the deciphering is more simple:
first letter A (1980-1981), then E, F and I in later years as additional bottom bracket types were produced, and the 7 digits represented just the sequential production number. . .

To find out the actual year, you need to know how many frames were produced each year... You can approximate this knowing that within each each between 1981 to 1984 between 15,000 (1981) to 17,000 (1984) frames were produced, and 10,000 frames were produced in 1980. . .

So based on the above, my bike frame was likely to be a 1984 bike frame. .

Happy to go over the above in more details, and with additional supporting information... and if you have a response to that, I am more than happy to reconsider. . .

Sincerely,

Christian