Hello All,
I am one of those people who gather up broken bikes and put them back together (not restored, just cleaned up and working - think beater). I then make them available to the local college students because a cheap bike is better than none at all.
I have just come across a Crescent Skania 10-speed road bike and am trying to find out more info on it. The bike is in pretty good shape (apparently not broken, just thrown out). It has an orange frame of Reynolds 601, a metal crescent badge on the front and the name "SKANDIA" on the down tube. there is a wrap decal towards the front of the top tube with crowns on it (not checkerboard). The pedals are metal with great beastly clips and leather straps. The bike has Weinmann/Vainqueur brakes and Campagnolo deraileurs and shifter (the shifters are works of art-lots of fine detail). Wheelbase is about 1 meter and the serial is 4625978 and stamped on the bottom bracket.
Does anyone have any information on this bike?
Thanks
Bearcat714
Crescent is a swedish brand (used to be Monarck a long time ago). Orange seems to have been their favorite color for whatever reason. I have one that I call the "Pumpkin". In any case many Crescents were relatively "high end" bikes builts of reynolds 531, the main difference among models being components attached to the frame. However, some were more towards the "low end" or "Gaspipe" range, also, with welded rather than lugged construction, steel one-piece crankshafts, etc. I have not heard of the scandia model, nor have I heard of reynolds 601. Sure it does not say 501?
The top of the line Crescent was called the "Pepita Special" and came in several variants of trim, but the same frame. Lower end Crescents had different names and some were made of hi tensile steel. Some had curved top tubes. Since your bike is 531 and it's not a Pepita, it must be a later frame. Can you post pics? It could be a late 70's-80's frame, when they shook up the model line up.
This is the second so called Skandia I`ve ever come across, and it`s in the US again. For sure this is something out of the MCB production, although we have never seen anything like it back home in Sweden. The top tube badge is from Monark (the crowns), the rest seems to be Crescent (the colouring) except for the Skandia name. We are some MCB-nerds over here who tried to find answers about the first Skandia, but came up with nothing. We guess those bikes were made in Brazil and was part of MCB`s introduction to the US. The bike is totally wrong, but as a curoius matter it is fantastic! For those who didn`t know, MCB stand for MonarkCrescentBolagen (Bolagen means company) and all through the 60`s to the 70`s the bikes were identical except for components. The name Pepita Special were a american invention. The high end bikes from top to bottom were called 320 (Campagnola), 319 (Dura Ace from late 70`s) and 318 (high end training bike with SunTour and various french components) These bikes were identical when it comes to frames (Reynolds tubing and Nervex/Dubois lugs). There after came 316, 312 and 309 which were made for "sporty" everyday cycling. Today Monark no longer make any road bikes. We will "investigate" this second Skandia!Best wishes - Jan, SWEDEN.
Hi again! The seat tube badge hails from a swedish bike called Nordstjernan. The funny thing is, the first Skandia I came across had an identical badge. Nordstjernan was not a product of MCB. So the Skandia bikes has got badges from three different bikes! Jan, Sweden.
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