yugyug

Had a bit of a gamble on an ebay frame, and now that its arrived I'm keen to know a bit more about it.

Sold as a NOS 80s road bike frame from Spain with Reynolds 501 tubing. Stickers are over the clear coat. Stickers on the forks are not placed on super well - I'll take them off if I can do it without damaging the paint..

It has a very cool paint job.

120 OLD - that seems weird to me for this era of road bike.

26.8 seat post.

thanks in advance

cb400bill

There is a Marvil bicycle company in Sweden.

Marvil – Upplev mer på din Marvil

yugyug

oops sorry thats rotated sideways!

I don't think they are connected. I did find a reference somewhere on the internet that there was in the past a framebuilder or shop by the name in Portugal, and that fits better with what the seller told me.

Bianchigirll 

Looks like a nice frame but I didn't think many people outside of Peugeot used 501. That seems pretty elaborate way for a frame builder to put his name on a frame unless he owned the shop. What is the BB threading?

yugyug

I haven't put a BB in yet but I'm pretty sure from measuring its ISO british. Ur right its not a bespoke framebuilder but one brand of a company seemingly well known in Portugal, but since closed, that was running for decades, making all sorts of bicycles and motorcycles as well. Nothing much comes up in English google, but I switched to Portuguese and there was loads. Going by google translate, the company had some sort of affiliation with Raleigh, which may explain the use of 501? I found a few interesting bikes similar to mine with 501 and the retinato style paint work - will post them tomorrow when I get back to my computer.

Wogster

You may want to find a shop that has a BB chasing tool, it looks a little rough where the seat tube is attached.

vsanzbajo

And according to the decal only the frame is butted, am I right? The forks and chain stays should not be. Am I wrong? The right decal should say butted frame tubes, forks and Stays. Let me know if I am wrong.
Thanks

Scooper

The 501 "Butted Frame Tubes" decal means that the TT, DT, and ST are butted, the HT is straight gauge, and the stays and fork blades aren't necessarily even made by Reynolds and could be just about anything.

Reynolds 501 is seamed chromoly.

yugyug

Thanks, will do. I thought it looked a bit messy myself, but I haven't stared into too many BB shells before.

yugyug

So heres some info I found out about this brand. I don't speak Portuguese and can't vouch for the accuracy of googles translation nor my interpretation of it!

A got a lot of info and some of these pics from here (and thank you to them):
Rodas de Viriato

It appears the brand was produced by the company Castro e Moura who also produced motorbikes and bicycles under other names including Iberia and Gloria. They also imported Raleigh motorcycles, and used other companies to build bicycle frames, including Valdemiro (who are still around and now make carbon frames). Castro & Moura even made tires! Here are some head-badges and other random pictures.

yugyug

Searching through Portuguese forums and Portugal's version of craigslist was illuminating. While google couldn't translate the forum chat very well (slang?), I was able to guess that the brand is well known by vintage fans and liked for being local. Here are some pics of road bikes ( and one mountain bike) I found which give me an idea of how I could kit out my frame. Note the similarities in use of 501 tubes, internal cable routing and the retinato style painting, which seems to be a bit of a thing for this brand (though I've learnt that Colnago and other brands also got into that too in the mid-80s.)



I'll be doing my build with a mix of late 80s 105, ultegra and dura-ace stuff, hoping to make it look as nice as the dura-ace build with the red and white fade above.

thanks for everyones comments.

yugyug

That took a while, but here it is!





More pics here:
https://spideroak.com/browse/share/GK...0for%20upload/

zukahn1 

Great looking bike I really like the build you did just not wild about the barftape. Looks most like a Swiss Titan to me the Marvil cutout sig looks to be something custom handone and likely has nothing to do with the actual ID of the bike, very interesting and unique though someone likely paid a good price to have it done, or maybe a previous owner was a world class medal craftsman who just like to put his sig on stuff.

jwarner

Beautiful... although I also think the bar tape is a bit too much. Thought about straight-up black by any chance?

yugyug

Thanks for the comments Yeah I 'm getting called on the bar tape by others too! lol. I wanted to just try something a little crazy and very late 80s and if you check out the photo gallery I linked you will find the inspiration I think eventually I will replace with leather, my preferred choice for feel, but anyway I need to dial in the fit first.

yugyug

Thanks didn't know about Swiss Titans - some great paintwork on those.

It is an unusual seat stay cut out, but I have found it on other Marvil branded bikes from Portugal, like this one for example:

Its a shame the company no longer around and there seems to be little chance of finding out much more about the frame.

rebel1916

80s looking bartape goes great with it. Cool paint.

Wildwood 

+1. Leave bar tape until the next inspiration comes along. Love the colors, eclectic to the max!

Thanks for the Portuguese pics, always looking for something that hasn't been exposed to us here in USA. I NEED a saddle like the one in the last pic.

Scooper

Gorgeous build, but I agree with those that think the bar tape may be a little over the top.

Looking at the butting of 501, the 0.8mm wall thickness at the top of the single-butted 501 seat tube and the 26.8mm seatpost lead me to suspect the 501 frame tubes are single-butted. If double-butted tubing were used with 0.6mm wall thickness at the top of the seat tube it would have taken a 27.2mm seatpost.