Classic & Vintage - The 24th Romic Bike

On my roadtrip home from Oklahoma, I decided to stop in Kansas to visit a guy who claimed to have lots of bikes, and prior to my visit he claimed "I'm sure I've got something you'd like". Well upon opening the barn, this jumped out at me. Of all of the frames, parts, and bikes crammed into that space, this one said "pick me". I held up a tape measure to it, just to find the measurements were EXACTLY what I was looking for. So after some persuasion, wife begging, and bartering, I strapped it to the car and brought it home.

After reading this great siteRomic History (http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~rpinder/Romic.html) I can see that the serial numbers on this bike match one printed in the first page of Ray's build log. This bike is the 24th one made, out of 14,724 built from 1974 to 2004.

http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/a434/JAGI410/Romic/romic1.jpg

Now the build log page says this bike was red. At some point it was refinished to this candy green, rather crudely. The paint has several chips, even fingerprints and other rub marks. No dents, dings, rust, or creases though.

Reynolds 531 DB tubes and forks, Haden Concorde chrome lugs, Shimano SF dropouts

Dura Ace crankset, DA brakes, DA brake levers, DA front derailleur, 600 long cage rear derailleur, and Shimano bar end shifters. These components, along with the original SR stuff point to this being a Model 100 "Deluxe Touring" per the pdf posted on the Romic site I linked above.

http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/a434/JAGI410/Romic/romic3.jpg
http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/a434/JAGI410/Romic/romic4.jpg
http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/a434/JAGI410/Romic/romic5.jpg
http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/a434/JAGI410/Romic/romic7.jpg
http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/a434/JAGI410/Romic/romic8.jpg
http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/a434/JAGI410/Romic/romic9.jpg
http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/a434/JAGI410/Romic/romic10.jpg
http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/a434/JAGI410/Romic/romic11.jpg
http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/a434/JAGI410/Romic/romic13.jpg

Any thoughts about the black painted DA stuff? How can I refinish those? The paint on the crank looks poor but it's actually in really nice shape. My plan is to strip the frame, repaint it (I know it should be red for purity's sake, but I love this green!), track down correct decals, build a nice set of wheels, and ride the hell out of it.

Nice! Should be a fun project.
FWIW, 1st Generation Dura Ace was offered in black. The brakes are gen-1, but I don't know the vintage of the rest.. I'm not a DA expert, but I do have a gen-1 brakeset and headset in black that I purchased new in '73 or '74,

Man, that traveled a long way from my home town. It looks gorgeous in green, why repaint it?,,,,BD

Fantastic! Be sure to get ahold of Rich Pinder of the Romic pages and get him some info. I have the 641st Romic (4/13/75). Picture of mine:

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q184/balindamood/Romic/IMG_0595.jpg

Very nice find. As a Houston native a Romic is my new "grail" bike.

Man, that traveled a long way from my home town. It looks gorgeous in green, why repaint it?,,,,BD

Simply because the current paint is fairly sloppy, and the decals are either missing, or in the wrong spot. The paint is fairly uneven on the seatstays and there's some runs by the seatlug cluster. The green is amazing though, since this frame is chrome underneath, it shines in the daylight. I might just repaint it the same color and put new decals on it.

I definitely would say go back with the green, especially since it looks so great in that color. I had a red Romic once, around an 85 model. It was tiny though. I mean they had to cut the lugs to make them fit on the head tube kind of tiny, hehe. I sold the frame in one day for $250. I should have asked more:D.,,,,BD

Amazing find. I love the bottle green. If I may humbly suggest, I would clean that up and give it a coat of wax before thinking about a repaint. Everyone has different standards, but I would never consider repainting that bike. Also, if you ever decide to sell it, a repaint will harm the value considerably. In any case, congratulations.

Schweet! I wish I could find some black Duar-Ace. I would love some brake calipers to top off my project.

The paint is fairly uneven on the seatstays and there's some runs by the seatlug cluster.

You might be able to use liquid polishing compound to smooth out the runs.

-Kurt

Amazing find. I love the bottle green. If I may humbly suggest, I would clean that up and give it a coat of wax before thinking about a repaint. Everyone has different standards, but I would never consider repainting that bike. Also, if you ever decide to sell it, a repaint will harm the value considerably. In any case, congratulations.

This bike was originally red, and repainted by someone else, so the "original" aspect is already gone. I do plan on polishing the paint first and seeing what imperfections I can get out of it first. I kinda like that it's not perfect. That whole Grant Peterson "beauty + usage = Beausage" thing. I'm going to throw some parts on it today just to see it "complete", then I have all winter to dream/plan about how it will emerge in the spring.

Fantastic find - Can't wait to see this all built up.
(+ 1 to the Green paint love!)

Took my 60's Brooks B17 from my Itoh fixed gear bike, took the wheels from my mother in law's Peugeot U-08 hanging in the garage, and slapped it together just to see how it looks.

http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/a434/JAGI410/Romic/Romic14.jpg

It looks freakin' amazing. I figure now that winter is here, I have a good 5-6 months before I can ride it, so I have plenty of time to track down parts to build it up right.

What a cool bike. I love that saddle on it.

I think that bike might need the silver Dura-Ace on it.

Fantastic! Be sure to get ahold of Rich Pinder of the Romic pages and get him some info. I have the 641st Romic (4/13/75). Picture of mine:

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q184/balindamood/Romic/IMG_0595.jpg

That's a stunner....

This bike is the 24th one made, out of 14,724 built from 1974 to 2004.

This is not correct. At some point prior to December 1976, the serial numbers erroneously had an extra digit added in. Mrs. Gasiorowski does not know what happened, but she has confirmed my serial number as being built by Romic and without outsourcing of frames.

Mine is 10360121076. Clearly, 10360 frames is not possibly by 1977.

http://i969.photobucket.com/albums/ae179/beech332/Blue%20frame/000_0133.jpg

http://i969.photobucket.com/albums/ae179/beech332/Blue%20frame/000_0134.jpg

Repainted and awaiting some custom, not Romic, decals:

http://i969.photobucket.com/albums/ae179/beech332/Blue%20frame/P4220007.jpg

If you need new decals, she is still selling them for about $30. She did warn me that they are not the same as the originals, but I forgot how they differed. I think it had something to do with the material.

Good info, I'll pass that number info onto Rich Pinder and see if he can look into it. Do you know how to get a hold of her? I'd love a couple sets of decals.

I think that Rich knows, from when I posted my research on the ClassicRendezvous email list.

Pm incoming on the decals.

Thanks Beech! I got the bike stripped down to the frame today. It appears that when the bike was repainted, he/she reassembled it before the paint fully cured. I also found a lightly engraved social security number in the drive side crank arm (SSN was issued in Delaware 1964-65). There are indents in the paint from zip ties and residue on the NDS crank arm that suggests a modern bike computer with cadence was once installed. I should be able to polish out most of the defects in the paint, and track down replacement decals.

Any suggestions on how to remove the exisiting torn Reynolds decals so I can replace them?