JulesCW 

Yesterday morning I was perusing FB Marketplace while sipping my morning cup of tea and saw this lovely small Doug Fattic light tourer about 30 miles away. Way too small for me -- but it's my wife's size! So off I went, presto pronto, and brought this gem home for $150. It's missing the bar end shifters, and had been living in a basement for some time, but is in pretty nice shape and will clean up well. Gorgeous thinned lugs and fastback seatstays -- Cinelli bottom bracket shell, Campy dropouts-- it is a wonderful frame.

Nice parts, too -- an Edco Competition headset, Sunshine sealed hubs, Super Champion Gentleman 700c rims, Zeus 2000 QR brake levers with Suntour Superbe calipers, Superbe FD, Cyclone MII rear, Super Maxy crankset with half-step gearing, Regina Oro freewheel, Specialized track pedals, Avocet women's saddle.

The bike has has very little use, which is a bit sad -- as was the reason for selling it -- the guy said his wife is 64, and too old to ride a bike -- I'm not far off of that age, and I hope I'm not sayin that until I'm at least 30 years older than she is (I can hope!).

I'm feeling lucky, and am happy to be its new custodian.

ascherer 

Wow, what a great find. Good that it'll enjoy a fresh start.

James1964 

Wow, that's a great bike for a crazy low price.

merziac

@JulesCW

Fantastic score, way to go.

I think that crank is a "Mighty" Sugino Super Mighty Competition.

One of the best in the business IMO, every bit as tough, strong and beautiful as any.

Doug Fattic 

This has to be one of my earliest frames. And it appears to have its original paint. I never liked those decals and paid a professional to change them to a script probably before 1978. I haven't seen a bicycle of mine with those decals in 30 years. So far I can't find who I built it for. It would be great if you could send me some dimensions. In that era for a non racing frame, I measured the seat tube in inches center-to-top from the center of the BB shell to the top of the top tube where it intersects the seat tube. That is a precise point I could measure to since center to top measurements had a variety of places where "top" could be considered to be located.

I made most sport touring frames with Reynolds 531 tubing and those are Cinelli lugs and fork crown.

repechage

First time I have seen that downtube graphic style.
Always clean work, very minimalist, but a good amount of effort to make that seat stay top intersection look smooth and tidy.

JulesCW 

Merziac, Good eye! You are correct -- it is indeed a Sugino Super Mighty Competition crakset, not the Maxy.

JulesCW 

Doug,

Thanks for your reply. Neat that it's an early frame.

The frame measures 20" from the center of the BB to the top of the top tube where it intersects the seat tube. The top tube is just a smidge over 19.5" center to center.

I had previously measured the frame c-c as 50cm square.

I am 99% sure it is original paint -- it is in pretty good shape, with a few scrapes from storage over the years, which should be easy to touch up.

FWIW, my wife, who thought it was nice when I brought it home, but not all that exciting (for her, a "normal" person, a bike is a bike), was surprised and pleased to hear your response, and now says she'll ride it with pride, so... victory!

merziac

I have always thought these are easily as good if not better than the almighty you know what in looks and performance.

My first good/better bike had one back in HS, anybody who saw it would ooh and ahh when they compared it to any of the middlin cranks of the time everybody else had.

Nobody we knew had a Campy group or crank but my core group knew what they were and were about, of course we knew these were a clone, but we also knew Sugino wasn't screwing around with them.

bikingshearer 

Let me see if I have this straight. You got a very nice Doug Fattic frame, ID'd and blessed by Doug Fattic himself, decked out with very good components, and your wife has been converted from "meh" to enthusiastic about riding it - and all for $150?

Yeah, I'd say that was an okay purchase.

gugie 

For $150, Doug mighta bought it back himself!

jdawginsc 

Beautiful lines. You do amazing work, Doug!

Doug Fattic 

It probably is the only one still in existence. I didn't use those decals very long before I got a substantial upgrade. It was typical in the late 70's and early 80's to repaint a frame every 3 to 5 years so any frames I made during the period I used those decals would have been redone. Most of my customers rode their bikes a lot so it is unusual to see one still in original condition from the 70's.

This particular frame was made for lady in IL in 1978. The lugs were made by Nikko that I got from Trek. They are similar in shape to Cinelli lugs except they were bulge formed and therefore didn't have welded seams like most lugs of that era. The majority of frames I made back then had more personal touches. I most often cut out the owner's initial in the down tube lug. It was also common for me to put 2nd color panels on the seat and head tube. And I frequently put their name on the top tube.

My work since I got back from England in 1975, has always been divided into building frames, painting frames and teaching frame building classes. In fact my purpose for going to Europe to learn how to build frames in the 1st place was so that I could teach the craft back here in the states (I was a high school teacher at the time). The trade had pretty much died out when the bike boom of 1970/71 brought an interest of high end bicycles back to the US. How to build frames had become a bit of a mystery and I set out to solve and share the secrets. The proportion of which of those 3 jobs I did has always varied. In the last 15 years I've been mostly teaching framebuilding (and painting) classes.

icemilkcoffee 

This is the great thing about this forum. It's not often that you actually get to 'meet your maker'

squirtdad

if your wife is not a fan of the drops, that would be a brilliant bike for something like the velo orange postino bars or nitto promenade bars