Classic and Vintage Bicycles: What's it Worth? Appraisals and Inquiries - Anyone have information on a bike? Lotus Excelle Triathlon Series

Hey new to the forums and biking, so I picked up a Lotus Excelle Triathlon Series bike for cheap and wanted to know a little about it. It is a 10 speed bike with Chrom Moly tubes, the front fork is Mangaloy and says 2001, so I'm guessing that maybe the fork is newer? The bike is from the mid 1980's I think. It was made in Japan. Thanks for any help that you can give?

The C&V forum specializes in older bikes. I'm moving your thread there.

Mangalloy is vintage, I have it on my 1983ish Lotus Eclaire. Don't count on finding a lot about Lotus on the web, its one of those secondary brands, never made any of their own bikes, but had some really nice ones made for them.

This is one of the more decent threads on Lotus. Use google, there are dozens, if not hundreds of Lotus threads on this forum.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/47382-Trying-to-ID-Lotus-Road-Bike


The only Lotus catalog I am aware of on the web is a 1981 version.

http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/joe_bunik/lotus/

I was going to comment on your bike but I have a question first.

All the Lotus Excelle bicycles I have seen and catalog information I have shows the Excelle as being part of the Sport Series of Lotus bikes (Excelle, Challenger SX, Challenger, International and Special). I did not know of a Triathlon Series Excelle.

Do you have a photo?

I've posted some pictures of it! sorry for the low quality.

http://imgur.com/a/5Uqko

The bike has a alot of good things going for it. Ishiwata triple-butted 4130 for starters. Don't know how to explain the fork. Maybe it was a replacement as you suggested?

The paint is overall in decent shape, could use some minor touchup. The components, can't say, but they look decent. Always take a pic from the bike's drive-side so that we can view the crankset and the derailers, helps to nail down the group and the range of dates of manufacture.

I am going out on a limb and suggesting that the frame might have been made by Giant or similar for Lotus. I only say that because of the triathlon graphics. Looks similar to ones I have seen on Giant's triathlon bikes.

Looks nice, clean it up, lube it and ride!

Very interesting Lotus, just when I think I've seen them all, a different version pops up.

Your bike is probably a 1988-89 model Excelle, given the shadow font on the Excelle decal and the fade paint scheme. Obviously now we know the Excelle was promoted from the Sport Series to the Triathlon Series after 1987. Your bike was probably the last of it's kind for Lotus as they stopped making bikes around 1990-ish. Lotus offered an Excelle model every year since they were introduced in 1980.

Lotus promoted the Excelle as their best selling model. In 1985 it was rated #1 by Consumer Reports and the Lotus Challenger was rated a Best Buy. MSRP in 1987 was $399.00.

The Tange Mangaloy 2001 front fork is probably correct for the bike, the smaller Excelle frames used Ishiwata triple butted tubing and some of the the larger sizes used Tange 900/1000 double butted tubing, but they both used Tange Mangaloy 2001 fork blades.

If you are so inclined, I wouldn't mind having a nice photo of the drive side of the bike for the website. Thanks!

Awesome thanks for the information. Feels like I got a pretty decent bike on my hands. I'm at work now will upload a nicer photo in a few hours!