pierce

hey, my son is moving to the UK for a few years, and he's asked me to flip the early Trek roadie that I bought him eons ago. I need to clean it up and sort it out (probably cables, brake pads, bar tape), this is what it looked like 9 years ago when I got it for him as he was starting college and expressed an interest in road bikes...



but that then-new repaint is kinda dinged and stuff. it has a very lightweight rack, the shifters have been replaced with bar-ends, and the gum rubber brake covers are totally disintegrating so I probably need to find a replacement (vintage weinmann drilled brakes). it has toeclip pedals now instead of the SPD ones in the picture

its a very nice ride... tall frame too. Its a 1977 TX300, Ishiwata tubing, touring geometry. has some upgrades like '90s 105 shifters with an Ultegra crankset (2x6 gearing)... not sure it still has the same wheels as I think the 80s Duraace hubs that were on it needed unobtanium parts

so I'm curious, having been out of these things for eons, whats the market like now for retro roadies like this? the bike is now in central coastal California (Santa Cruz)


here's a current picture pre-cleanup.

jlaw

You may or may not know....the 'TX' Treks are from the very earliest days of that company - some info. re: this here:

https://www.vintage-trek.com/Trek_timeline.htm

I suggest that you check the serial number to verify that it is a TX300 and that it is from 1977 - would be fun to know if this is one of the first bikes.

https://www.vintage-trek.com/SerialNumbers.htm

Looks like you may have a 'Jim Blackburn' rear rack - which is a nice vintage element - it should be stamped 'Jim Blackburn'. Maybe the bottle cage is original also?

Re; value - it's a large frame (24" or 25.5"?) that has been re-painted and has a variety of original/non-original components on it. The fact that it is a very early Trek may add appeal for certain buyers. Check Craiglslist and ebay. Unless there is something exceptional about this bike that I'm not aware of, I would suggest a CL asking price of $225 in my area (N.E.U.S.).

I bet it's a nice ride and is certainly suitable for rehabilitation or a 650B conversion.

Good Luck!

lostarchitect 

At a glance that looks more like an '82 or so rather than a '77. Pretty sure in '77 they didn't have brazed on cable guides on the top tube. Maybe no water bottle mount either? Double check the serial number.

Chris_in_Miami

Agreed, my '77 TX had neither cable guides, cage mounts, nor shifter bosses. I believe this is either a later bike, or it had some subtle modification prior to the respray.

pierce

looks to me like a TX300, 24" from July 1977, serial A11. The 24" is confirmed by tape measure.

it does have braze-ons, including derailleur guides, downtube shifter mounts, and water bottle mounts, as well as top tube guides for the rear brake line.... per vintage-trek, 'brazeons could be ordered from the factory'.

I was wrong, its got a 7 speed freewheel (or maybe cassette?) now, so its a 2x7 gearing. The front rim is a Matrix, the rear a Mavic, I don't remember exactly, but the back wheel it came with had something wrong with it, like a bad freewheel, or weird size, or something

oh yeah, I'm remembering, when we got it, it had a old Specialized 52-42 crank and bottom bracket, but my kid wanted a smaller chainring for hill climbing in Humboldt County, so i swapped that for this much lighter Ultegra, which is, I think, 52-36.



it also had this kinda funky and worn out early Deore derailleur set on it, which I replaced with the 80s vintage 105 stuff

lostarchitect 

Huh, yeah you're right about the serial! I have never seen one of the lower end (for Trek) frames with a bunch of custom braze-ons, but stranger things have happened. They could also have been added before the repaint.

pierce

oh yeah, it is a 'jim blackburn' rack...


the 1977 trek catalog on the Vintage Trek site did list complete bikes, i wonder if they would have used brazeons on those instead of clampons ? The TX302 was a TX300 frame, with Sugino crankset, Diacomp center pull brakes, SR bars and stem, Suntour VGT deraileurs, Suntour 14-26 freewheel, MKS pedals, large flange Sanshin hubs with unspecified alloy rims, and an Elina Pro saddle


pretty sure none of that is on this bike anymore, hah hah. edit: oops, rear brake is a diacompe side pull, and the brake levers are diacompe. front brake is a more modern looking 'super slr' dual pivot sidepull, guess thats Shimano. I'm sorta remembering that I couldn't fit a dual pivot on the back, as the bridge to rim distance was a bit too long, almost made me wonder if this frame was originally 27" instead of 700C.

but, my daily rider bike from the 70s had a lot of upgrades... I still have it, beat all to heck, its a 1974-ish Motobecane Grand Record (bought new in 75), which mostly Campi NR and SR parts on it. Used to have tubulars but has been 700c since the mid 80s.

tkamd73 

Thats cause the guy that ordered your frame, from the Trek dealer was cheap, shorted sighted, or both. Only 28 bucks for all the braze ons your frames is missing from the factory. Of course, in 77 twenty eight dollars was a bit more money. Nah, not really when considering the price of a quality bike. None of the TX bikes were low end, and the down tube shifter bosses were Campy.
Tim

Salamandrine 

In the 70s there was some sort of superstition that braze ons made the frame not as strong or some such thing. Ridiculous of course, but that was the fashion.

OutnBack

I have a green 77 TX300 frame that was given to me. No braze-ons. I need to build it up.

pierce

certainly, my 1975 Reynolds 531 double butted Motobecane Grand Record has campi strap-ons for everything, I don't think there were any brazeons at all.

Chris_in_Miami

Interesting, I didn't realize the brazeons were an option. It seems like a lot of the TX-series bikes I've seen didn't have them.

jlaw

@pierce - Here's a similar one for $275 - VGC with many/most original parts:

https://madison.craigslist.org/bik/d...994967008.html

TX 302 - S#C4D8V76 (1978?)

Cycle Tourist

You could order braze-ons for various features from the factory or a bare frame. My early bikes were strap on everything mostly cause I could barely afford the frame never mind a finished bike.

The Golden Boy 

My 78 TX700 doesn't have TT cable guides or DT shifter mounts.

pierce

so I've listed this bike over in the classifieds, along with better pictures after cleaning it up some, and putting new bar tapes and brake boots on it...

https://www.bikeforums.net/sale/1188...lie-275-a.html

ts99

I ordered my 1977 Trek from the factory and I was cheap. It took all my money from painting my grandma's house as it was. As I recall, it was $20 per braze-on, not $28 total, but I could be mistaken.

thumpism 

That's what I did with my 022-tubed 510. Not a nibble on my ad in our Marketplace, so good luck with yours.

Kuromori

Braze-ons do in fact weaken steel cycle tubing, especially silver brazing, and especially silver brazing on cold-worked tubes.

That being said, you can obviously make a durable frame with braze-ons, and clamp-on parts are awful for other reasons.

dddd

Silver brazing is done at lower temperatures than brass brazing, so did you really mean to say that it is more detrimental to frame strength than brass brazing???

Kuromori

Yes, I meant to say exactly that, especially silver brazed cold-drawn (non-heat-treated) tubes.

Silver brazing is done at subcritical temperatures and causes cold-worked grain structure to recrystallize, undoing the work-hardening. This is unavoidable and not insignificant on a typical joint.

Brass brazing raises steel above critical, which also destroys the cold-worked grain structure, but also causes austenitization, meaning the strength of the steel depends on the rate of cooling, and therefore variable on technique. If the joint is brought up to temperature all at once, then allowed to cool all at once, there's a chance the rest of the frame will act like a heat sink and cause it to become even harder that it was originally but with some chance of embrittlement if cooling is too fast. In a joint done by a skilled builder with a handheld torch, the strength of the steel at the joint is likely to be stronger than the strength of the steel of a silver joint, but less than the original strength. If the joint happens to be done in the worst possible way, where the steel is held at some intermediate temperature while cooling, then it could end up weaker than silver brazed steel.

It's not a given that brass brazed steel is stronger at the joint, but silver does not result in the strongest steel at the joint, and there's not much good reason to believe it will be stronger on a typical frame joint with cold-worked tubes. There will be a ring of HAZ where the steel of the brass brazed joint reaches silver brazing temperatures and is weakened just as much, but it's not at the stress riser caused by the braze-on or joint.

IsleRide

Unlikely I think, that top mount cable guides would have been added prior to a repaint. If added I would think side mount socket types would have been used.
My 79 710 has the top mount cable guides. (original paint) Maybe that was standard in 79. I don't know.

The Golden Boy 

In 79 cable guides and other braze ons were optional.
Remember your 710 was an upper level bike- the original purchaser of the bike may have had a little extra money to spend over someone buying a hi-ten framed bike.

IsleRide

Agreed. I was thinking of the timeline and that if a repaint occurred years later a different type of cable guide (stop) might have been used.

bongobike

According to the serial numbers on my vingtage Trek it is a 1977 710. That is also what the seller told me at the time. I bought the frame and built it up from there. Suntour vintage drive train. It has brazeons for one bottle mount and top tube cable guides. Once I learn how to post pics here I will.