ricklp

Thank you very much for the input so far.

A couple weeks ago, I emailed the owner of the vintage Trek web site and he pointed out the brake and chain stay bridge reinforcements as non-Trek. He also said that the brake bridge was non-Trek, though I still don't see the difference.

Someone else suggested that the Trek factory allowed its employees to build themselves one frame, and that this could be one. The brass brazing as opposed to silver brazing leads me away from this theory, since I would not expect someone to use brass if the higher end frames they built at the factory were silver brazed.

The presence of a long serial number leads me to believe it is a production frame. Also, my LBS owner is a lifer sort of bike guy and he thinks it looks more production run and less "hand built"

The Shimano dropouts and Reynolds Butted tubes, seem somewhat specific. The lack of down tube shifter bosses, the cable housing guides on the top tube, and above the bottom bracket cable routing seem to pin down the age within reason. It just seems like it should be solvable. Grumble.

I am hoping that the "all knowing Interweb" can satisfy my need to have puzzles around me solved. I have wasted way too many hours looking at old catalogues and niche websites trying to solve this myself.

So, PLEASE keep the input coming.

I got into doing century rides last year, and I am very curious about how this bike will ride, but I know myself well enough to be sure that owning an unsolved mystery frame will bother me. In a century I would have a lot of time to have the unsolved mystery needle at me. Laff. I'd also hate to refinish it, then identify it, and find out the refinishing was "wrong".

Thanks again,

Rick