Originally Posted by
wearyourtruth
i would say look for steel, nicely lugged (you can pretty much always equate the cleanliness of the lugwork with the quality of the frame/tubing), horizontal dropouts, and not french.
Not always. I picked up a '77 Gitane Gypsy Sport, which has lugging like this:
Yet, this is a low-end, probably Taiwanese-made (had an ISO bottom bracket), hi-tensile frame.
That said, I love this bike, and fully converted it only weighs around 23 pounds, even with two brakes, a freewheel and the original steel handlebars. So I guess I'd have to agree with what wearyourtruth said, in spite of my caveat. I'd add removable chainrings to the list, and avoid ashtabula cranks (easily spotted by the huge bottom bracket).