Headpost

It's a beautiful bike in great condition as far as I can tell, but it came without handlebars, stem, shifters or brake levers. Everything else seems to be there. It has 700c Mavic rims and a Uniglide 6-speed cassette, Deore parts, a triple in front. Cantilever brakes.

Do these parts sound like they're original to the bike or was it built up from a frame? Does anyone know about old Co-Motions?

At this point, how can I best make it rideable in the fashion it deserves? I was thinking bar-end friction shifters on drop bars, or should I change it to 7 speed and get indexing shifters?

Thanks to anyone who can help me with this. I know nothing about Uniglide or bar-end shifters. I promise to add some pictures soon.

rando_couche

AFAIK, CoMotion has never sold complete bikes, only framesets.

merziac

@Headpost

"its a beautiful bike in great condition"

Says you, pics or it didn't happen plz.

merziac

Well they do now, pretty sure they have for a long time, many of their custom setups would require them to do the build, often with custom stems, mounts and plenty else.

https://co-motion.com/collections/bikes

They have and do build some of the best tandems and many else for a long time now.

They are a go to for custom high quality, turn key tandems, multi rider and singles including S+S coupled travel versions of all.

Their line-up and capability are nothing short of staggering.

Their is virtually nothing they won't take on.

merziac

@Headpost

I would reach out to them.

https://co-motion.com/

rando_couche

Well. Learn something new every day! Thanks.

Headpost

Here is the bike as I bought it. I put on a stem I had just to move it around. The tires are brittle and will need to be replaced.

That's a good idea to contact Co-Motion, thanks.

A question: Does the fact that it doesn't have fittings for shifter cable adjustment barrels on the downtube mean that it was made for friction shifting?

Also, those aren't Campagnolo cranks; Unless I'm wrong they're Sakaes, or something like that, with the names rubbed off. Any idea why someone would do that? Not to sell the bike to me.

Thanks again!

Headpost

A few more:

merziac

Hard to say on the dust caps, its a win imo, they are desirable so...

And the crank is no slouch anyway, run with it for now at least.

You have a blank canvas, this may have been finger tip when it was built and not a bad way to go now.

There is no wrong answer here, as discussed, many of these were custom build at the start, if not they may be able to tell you what it had but it really doesn't matter now.

These are very nice, I would modernize it and ride the heck out of it and bet on it being a fantastic bike.

bboy314

I’m not familiar with older Co-Motions but I’d guess it came with some kind of upright or flat bars and MTB style shifter, especially if the XT branded chainstay protector/shark fin is original. These would’ve come with their own barrel adjusters so the downtube stops wouldn’t need them. If I were building it, I’d first decide what type of handlebar I want and go from there with cockpit decisions. Cool bike!

due ruote 

Sweet bike! I am picturing it with dirt drops or mustache bars with bar end shifters, but whatever you do it will be cool. If you want indexing you can always add an in-line adjuster.

bwilli88 

That is a nice bike it would build up great with dirt drops and bar-ends.
But this is how I would build it 3x10 with SR-780 flat bar shifters and BL-780 brake levers. My Pro-tour has this setup and for a bad back and neck it is great.

mechanicmatt

The crank is extremely similar to one that came with my 1991 Trek 750. SR Sakae made for Suntour XCE level components. Probably some markings on the inside of the crank arms, those didn't have outside labeling.

Downtube cable housing stops are just those made for shifting to not be on the downtube. I assume these either had mountain bike type or trekking handlebars. Thumbshifters would be my guess as to what was used then.

I like others are saying would give this a modernish makeover, it's a total beauty. Maybe would have 135mm spacing between the rear dropouts, ie mountain bike hube spacing. Great brakes btw, I think they are Suntour XC Pros which should work excellent if setup right and with good pads.

Just a cool bike.

Headpost

Thanks to everyone for the compliments, advice, ideas. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do, but someone at Co-Motion was nice enough to get back to me so I thought I'd share their (edited) response:

Thanks for your inquiry- you’ve got yourself a very unique frame there. We made two such bikes, and “mule” was not a model name, the name was painted there by request. It was an idea a customer had for a bike that he thought of as an all purpose, pack-mule like animal. He wanted to ensure that it would fit the largest 700c tires he could find, and so we built him a frame that would do just that. Months later, he found still larger 700c tires, and talked us into building him a frame with even more tire clearance. As a result there are two of them, both featuring the Mule name on the top tube, both painted the same frog green color.

I believe these frames were built around 1990 and were sold as framesets, so the complete build was done by the original owner, however certainly Mavic rims, Deore hubs and 6 speed drivetrain would have been the norm for that time. As I recall the build had cantilever brakes and drop bars, probably with bar end (barcon) shifters.

due ruote 

…so now it’s even cooler.

merziac

Absolutely love it when this happens, so cool.

Tx for updating us, this is great, you can literally take this wherever you want to.

Dylansbob 

Now the question becomes, just how big of tire would fit it? 1990... Didn't spesh have a 42mm touring tire? Were Hakkapilittas available then in 45?

Headpost

It may have seemed like a lot of tire clearance for back then, but now, with fat bikes and all that . . . It's really not so much. I'm guessing this was the first frame that was built, with the second one getting the more tire clearance. My guess would be that, with fenders, you couldn't go any bigger than 35s.