Not much info on Simplon. Made in Austria, but I think this frame may have been from somewhere else ... I'm just guessing. France — at least for the diamond? Dunno. The Reynolds decal indicates (by my interpretation anyway) that the main tubes are 531. The dropouts are Campagnolo, so I am assuming that the forks and stays are at least something pretty decent. The sellar claimed the model is called 'Spezial'. But I think that it refers to the tubing that was cooked up for the stays. The seller claims 1985 for this one. It has a 126 mm spread in the stays. I intend on keeping it seven-speed and using something like a Mavic Open 4 700c for clinchers. The company logo these days looks nothing like the Arabesque looking one you see here.

One of the reasons I bought it was because it is probably gonna fit me better than my 54X54 Trek 560 — which I like a LOT BTW. But, the Simplon is 56X54. So my longer legs and shorter trunk may keep me from having to use a Nitto Technomic stem. With a normal stem. I can barely see the road when I'm in the drops! My saddle is hiked up too high.

These days the Simplon company is producing a limited number of bikes for the European market ... limited cuz it appears that there is a lot of hand-work going on. Originally the company was a boat builder. They decided to get into bikes — so the story goes. The blah blah is that they used the name Simplon to signify Swiss type quality.

I wonder if I should strip back some of the damaged paint and expose what may be chrome underneath? Whaddaya think? The powder coaters would probably just coat the whole enchelada.