Classic & Vintage - Lets play "Name that bike!"

UPDATE


KHS Touring bike ( possibly an "Especial")
My favorite game: Name that bike

Went out to see the bike on a poor CL add because I noticed the cantilever brakes on it so I had to give it a shot.

It was spray bombed, missing brakes and rotted tires but the lug detail, touring frame, braze-ons and no rust or dents got me to spring on it.

Below are a few pics after some scraping and paint stripping.
I found:
1. Tange 3 butted tubing decal, 26.6 seatpost
2. Lable at the bottom "Parker Process, MIKI Sakai, Made in Japan,"
3. Ghosted headtube badge was revealed under the spraypaint = diagonal block with two crested heads at the top?
4. Found remnants of a diagonal sash type of stripe on the seat tube, cant see lettering.
5. Detailed headtube lugs
6. Suntour stamped dropouts
7. 57cm c-c seat and top tube
8. 27" Araya alloy wheels 36 spoke
9. Sunshine Hubs 3x6 gearing
10. Suntour ARX - FD RD, Suguino 50-45-34 triple crank, Dia Compe non-aero cantilever brakes, Suguino caged ball BB, suntour friction barends
11. downtube and lowrider bottle cages, no pump peg, eyelets for rack on rear with simple upper eyelets, and double eyelets on fork

No other lettering or names show through in the usual downtube and toptube areas.

an old Centurion or Nishiki Touring bike?

what is this? the underside of fork crown?

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=207578&d=1308783957

Nice find. How much did you pay for it?

That is the back of the head tube, the downtube goes off to the left, top tube enters to the right. Just taking a pic of the lug shape on the back of the headtube.

I'm not proud that I paid $45 for a working but front brake free bike, it but I figure I got a rear rack, crank and barend shifters that are nice to have on hand. Alas, no $5 garage sale find here.

Heres the add pics. It looks worse in person. ;)

HA HA HA, Just got it by zooming in on my own photo!

"KHS" is in the headbadge.

But what is it and what year? Anyne have an idea of what it looked like new?

KHS Touring frame

That sounds like a good price for what you got. Especially here in SoCal.

maybe for what "i really got" after a good clean and repaint etc. But it really just looks like a turd. I think it was painted twice or more in its life.

Any ideas on a model or year?

It's just a powdercoat away from resurgency.
I think I saw a black and white treatment of another classic somewhere....

This'll be all black or even black with white headtube and seattube band. Gold lug lining of course

So does anyone have any info on 82-87 KHS bikes?
Any idea of the name/model?
Links to catalogs?
There was another faint logo on the chainstay "18 Speed".

Suntour ARX was only made for 2 years-84 and 85, thus your bike is one of those years and it's a mid level bike since the ARX only were found on mid level bikes.

Unfortunately ARX was not a good design. I have those derailleurs on a 84 Fuji Club, and even though the components (and bike) only have about 5 miles on it when I bought it used last month, it doesn't shift as smooth or as fast as my other Suntour components I have namely Superbe Pro, Superbe Tech, Cyclone, and Mountech. Just a side note; personally of the four I listed, the Tech shifts the best even though it got a bad rap for reliability...odd, I have over 150,000 miles on mine and never had a problem. The Mountech is on a touring bike (they were also found on MTB's) thus designed for larger gear spread and it shifts really good; but that one too supposedly had reliability issues, but mine only has 3,000 miles on it so it's too early to tell. But that Tech derailleur could shift up or down under extreme load, I could shift it down while climbing mountains in California and never let up on on the pedals and it would bang into position without hesitation.

The only person that may shed some light on old KHS bikes is T-Mar. I'll take the bike if you just want to give up. :D Seriously.

Not giving up but I am resurrecting it. Got it all stripped and sanded yesterday, hope to start the paint process today or tomorrow.
It's too big for me but is still very nice. Instead of black Ill actually be doing a metal flake gray with gold lug lining since I have it already.

84 KHS Touring Special

Not giving up but I am resurrecting it. Got it all stripped and sanded yesterday, hope to start the paint process today or tomorrow.
It's too big for me but is still very nice. Instead of black Ill actually be doing a metal flake gray with gold lug lining since I have it already.

If it's too big, pass it along. I may have something your size. :D

Got some progress finally.
Stripped to nasty paint off, sanded, primer, sanded, base of gray metallic, sanded, coats of clear that was milky and didn't go on right, sanded first clear off, then shot with other clear that looked good, sanded and shot with another coat but got runs due to rushing, sanded them off and oops pulled a chip out of the uncured paint, sanded and cleared it again then oops it fell onto the grass, waited till dry, removed grass, sanded again, let it cure and lined the lugs with gold since I'm out of paint and patience.

Yeah, I could have done without some of those steps! I was just trying to get a basic paint job on her! At least that's done.

It should make a fun little tourer or CX bike for someone. I'm thinking I'll put CX tires on it and sell it this fall, see who's interested.

I was really interested until you painted it. :P

The paint looks good, but a C&V'er like me would want to do all that work himself.

Looks nice!

Have you ever test-ridden it?

I didn't test ride it yet, too tall for me anyhow.
Sorry realestvin7, I understand you were interested but an ulterior motive of mine is to let a buddy ride it once I've built it back up as he only has a hybrid bike and wants to ride more. I'll let him use this for a little and see how he likes the drop bar road bike feel. Plus, I dont need any bikes in trade for my size. I've got too many ;) (according to my wife)

Now its on to cleaning up all the components. Ugh.

I suggest "Herbert" if you're still looking for a name

That would be the french pronunciation correct? "Herr-bher"

That would be the french pronunciation correct? "Herr-bher"

Let's keep the Frenchness far away from this bike. Lol.

after watching green hornet (what a mistake) I think its name is KATO.

So here he is all cleaned up. Had some mishaps with the paint so its not perfect but spent a good bit of elbow grease on this. New tires and chain are on the way but I wanted to finish it up.

At least it is rescued from the scrapper or wasting away outside in a yard.

84 or 85 KHS Touring Bike "Especial" model perhaps?

Just put it back to stock with the exception of seatpost, saddle, and 90s MTB cantis. All parts I had on hand. So far, the tires and paint are the only expenses.

Looks great.

I dunno if KHS uses same initial letter scheme for the s/n as Miyata, but if so, "M" denotes 1984, I believe.

The only person that may shed some light on old KHS bikes is T-Mar.

+1, from an earlier thread:


The Reynolds 531 frame with Gran Sport would be a 1984 Olympian, a.k.a. model K-8, MSL: $600 US. I can't identify the model of the other bicycle, but it should be 1987/1988 with an MSL around $650 US. I know the 600 Ultegra equipped bicycle during this period was the Triathlon Pro, so maybe the 105 equipped model was the Triathlon? The frame with the curve seat tube sounds like a circa 1990 Aero Turbo.

KHS is a Taiwanese company, originally formed in 1930 as Wan-Wu. It was renamed KHS in 1945 to reflect its primary businesss of providing supplies to schools (KHS = Kong Hsue Sheh = contribution to schools and society). Bicycles became a logical offshoot of supplying sporting goods to schools. The company began exporting lightweight models to the American markets during the early 1970s but suffered quality issues and quickly pulled out of the markets. They went to the Japanese for engineering expertise and training, re-entering the US market with a much improved line in the mid-1970s.

KHS was an early proponent of triathlons, with advertisements for their Turbo model specifically targeting this market as early as 1983. Shortly thereafter, they contracted noted cyclist and triathlete John Howard to promote their upper end bicycles, covering Centurion's Dave Scott bicycles. Like many manufuacturers, their emphasis shifted to ATBs in the late 1980s and remains so to this day, though thet still produce a complete line, including road bicycles, city bicycles and even speciality bicycles such as trandems and folding bicycles.

Run a google search with the following terms, and you'll come up with some useful info:
site:bikeforums.net khs t-mar