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Old 02-25-15, 11:57 AM
  #9  
JohnDThompson 
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Appleton WI
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Bikes: Several, mostly not name brands.

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The frame looks to be ~52cm center to center; likely far too small for a 6' 4" rider. Too bad, because the frame is the best thing about those bikes. It's astonishingly light weight, seamless chrome-moly tubing. The components tend to be odd: the crank extractor threads may be non-standard (later production used standard 22mm thread; the first runs used proprietary 7/8" x 24tpi thread). Chainrings use the formerly quite popular 50.4mm bolt circle to mount the outer ring. Early production also used an untapered spindle, which meant the arms didn't stay tight without frequent re-torquing. The pedals were innovative, with a one-piece cast body and roller bearings rather than balls for better load handling. But they had an unfortunate tendency to lose their dustcaps, and subsequently the retaining bolt, thereby spilling the needle bearings on the road. Lambert derailleurs are best unmentioned, but you don't seem to have them anyway. Thee hubs were one of the first sealed bearing hubs on the market and seem to hold up rather well. The bottom bracket also has sealed bearings, with the cartridges pressed directly into an unthreaded shell. These were held by circclips on the axle, the retaining grooves for which acted as stress risers leading to axle failure. The shell can be reamed and tapped for Italian thread, if needed.

The fork is definitely the so-called "death fork." There were several iterations of this design, and although some are thought to be more reliable than others, all were subject to recall:



It's an interesting bike, and they ride well but if it doesn't fit you that's a fundamental problem. Be prepared to have to work around the issues of the proprietary components, which can get expensive if/when they fail.
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