familyguy

My ebay score:
https://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....m=170183907822

Picked it up today. I'll give it a clean and post some more pics once I've done that.

First pic:


Shimano 600 gruppo, Cosmos bars, Reynolds 501SL frame (complete frame), Mavic MA2 front/Rigida rear wheels, Tange headset, unknown hubs. Gotta check all the bearings, but they feel smooth aside from the head set. The wheelbase is 15mm shorter than my Giant OCR1!

Anyone know anything about Zini? I read someplace that he was a small time frame builder out of Italy (an Italian framebuilder NOT using campy???) and exported to South Africa, but gave the gig up. So how this wound up in Australia is anyones guess.

BTW, the brakes are flipped from normal Australian setups, the right is the back, the left is the front! Thats getting changed TOMORROW!

Jim

cyclotoine

more like, italian frame builder using reynolds!?

MajorA

At that price, you can't go wrong ... I've never seen a bike from that era with Shimano 600 that didn't have a lot to recommend it. (The Shimano bits will have two-letter date codes on them, if you're curious as to the bike's vintage.) Have to say, though, that I've never heard of Zini.

Ex Pres 

Nice score!

familyguy

Yeah, never thought of it that way! Reynolds and Shimano could put it more or less any place outside Italy. Maybe he was Italian working in South Africa...that'd be a better explanation!

I've got no reason to disbelieve the 501SL sticker, its not slapped onto a sh1theap like I have seen done. And its nowhere near as heavy as my Tange Infinity Centurion. I should get some date codes off it tonight and post them to see if I can determine a vintage.

Jim

PBR Streetgang

Didn't Masi use 531? Columbus, if you paid extra.

familyguy

Been doing some lurking on VeloBase.com (a site I'm really liking right now) this morning and dug out the following info that I reckon puts this bike squarely in a 1987-88 production:

Brake calipers- 6208
- no info on velobase
- visually identical to 6207 model
- 6207 were 84-87 production
- 6208 may be 88->?

Brake levers - 6209
- no info on velobase
- aero levers, non-drilled, black hoods
- may be a replacement set if 6209 follows 6208 from '88 onwards
- they do have 'Shimano 600' on the front, not just 'Shimano'

Cranks - 6207
- with round chainrings
- 84-87 production

FD - 6207
- 84-87 production

RD - 6208
- 86-88 production

Levers - 6209
- no info on velobase
- no name on underside like 6207 model
- 6207 were 84-87 production
- 6209 may be 88->?

My LBS seems to be a bit of a Masi fan, so I'll take it down to him and ask about Masi building 531 frames. If the Italian framebuilders did occasionally use Reynolds, then maybe I can narrow the manufacture down a little more.

Jim

familyguy

Oh, forgot to mention...the rear dropout only has one stamp on it. On the outside face of the drive side rear dropout it has five numbers:

70 161

Pic:


Any thoughts?

Jim

MajorA

Most of the Shimano bits will also have a small two-letter code on them. The easiest ones to find are on the backs of the cranks, but they're on the backs of the brake calipers, on the derailleurs, on the hub bodies if they're Shimano, etc. First letter is the year, second is the month. In this era, J=1986, K=1987, L=1988 etc. So ... KB would be February of 1987, and so on. Take a look and 1) the codes should be consistent within a year (sometimes parts sit in the bin for a year before they go on the bike, so there can be some inconsistency) and 2) should tell you your vintage.

familyguy

The three codes I found on the photos I bought to work today all start with L. LB, LD and LF on front brake, rear brake and cranks respectively.

So L = 1988, lending weight to '88 as production year.

The hubs are a puzzle. The dust covers on the bearings read Shimano 600, but the hub bodies say nothing except "SEALEDMECHANISM" (all one word in a continuous sticker that wraps around the middle of the hub). Nothing else on them ID'ing them as 600 hubs. Doesnt really matter if they are or not, cause they seem fine and spin nicely, just a little dirty. VeloBase doesnt seem to have hubs in their database.

Thanks for the assistance everyone. I'll refrain from posting more on this (if I can!) until I've given it a clean and polish and see if anything else throws up a red flag.

Jim

PBR Streetgang

Here's a link to an article (courtesy of Bob Hovey) from 1969 Bicycling! that states that Masi used both Columbus and 531:

https://bhovey.com/Masi/MasiArticles/Bicycling.htm

This is pre-Masi USA, so all frames made at the time were made in Italy. So, if Masi did it, then there's a possibility other Italian builders did it.

Good luck!

Citoyen du Monde

I have met Paolo Zini. He now works as a goldsmith in the province of Parma in Italy. He has absolutely no ties with cycling whatsoever and has some rather negative memories of the time spent among the pros (he raced for the SCIC team in 1970 and 1971). He is/was too intelligent to accept the life of a domestique in the 70's and not fast enough to race for himself.

He sold bikes out of a shop in Parma and exported quite a few to South Africa. My memory is growing somewhat sketchy about the rest that he told me, but I believe that by the 80's he had already given up frame building, so I doubt that your bike was built by Paolo. I seem to recall that Paolo 'sold' the rights to build Zini bikes to someone in South Africa, so it is perhaps more likely that the bike was actually made there. Given the large number of South Africans and Zimbabweans who have emigrated to Australia, it would be quite easy that the bike ended up in Oz.

TBART

Those are Shimano 600 hubs. I have afew wheel-sets that use them & have never had a problem with them. Good catch btw!

dubhead

If this is any help, I'm South African and we were a keen cycling family in the later 1908s/early 90s. My mother had a Zini and I recall it had a Reynolds frame (531 I think), full Shimano 105 grouppo, and a Mavic wheelset. She bought it new from a bike shop in central Johannesburg.

I remember it being an exceptionally good quality bike for the price she paid, which suggests it was locally manufactured rather than imported. This holds with your theory that Zini production was in SA.

Sadly it was stolen by a gardener at our house in about 1996...