What is this? Very close to a 1981 Trek 710 but isn't.
 

Greetings,

While hunting down parts for another resto-mod project, I came across an old frame.

A local fellow's father had found the whole bike at the side of the road during cleanup week brought it home to his son.
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=360628

The son disassembled the bike, cleaned it all up, stripped the paint, clearcoated it, and rode it for a few months.
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=360629

He needed money for repairs to his mountain bike, and decided to part out the curbside find. I saw his ad on pink bike and was interested in some of the components. I met him at a donut shop, and purchased the frame and fork, with a Phil Wood bottom bracket, a Sugino AT triple crankset, a 600 Arabesque downtube shifter set, an SR Laprade seat post, a Campy headset, and front and rear Blackburn racks for $120 CAD.

Now, I am going insane trying to identify this frameset. The previous owner thought it could be a Masi. I thought it was a Trek 710. I have asked around, and my latest lead is that my “go to” LBS owner thinks it could be a Falcon or some other British bike.

The details I have are as follows:
Center of bb to seat post binder bolt 54.5CM
Center of head tube to center of seat tube 54CM
Center of bb to center of head tube 62CM
Center of rear dropout to center of BB 44.8CM
Seat stays 54CM
Drop out to brake bridge 36.5CM

The gas exhaust hole on the left fork is on the outside.(manufacturing mistake likely?)

Haden Europa fork crown
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=360614

Shimano sf dropouts
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=360618

It has Reynolds Butted stamped on most of the tubes. seat, top, down, and steer
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=360616http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=360617

It has 140 11 82 stamped on the chain stays
(Ran out of allowed attachments, see web directory of bike being stripped"

Bottom bracket is stamped with EO in a diamond
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=360621

I think it is very similar to a 1981 Trek 710
Its bottom bracket is shaped like a trek bottom bracket
The BB cable guides look like Campy over the BB guides(like on a trek 710)
But, the chainstay bridge reinforcements are not something Trek used
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=360622

All lugs and dropout looks like the lugs and dropouts used on a Trek 710
(The Trek uses Nikko Sangyo seamless long point Italian cut lugs)
All cable guides look like the trek guides
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=360623

Seat stay caps are cast without the name trek
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=360624

It does not have rack mounts like a trek 710 would have
The brake bridge and chainstay bridge reinforcements are not something Trek used
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=360625

The serial number is completely wrong for a Trek
It is 424769
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=360626

The rest of the photos of the bike being stripped are here:
lund-pedersen . com \ mysterybike

A discussion of details the last owner discovered while stripping the frame is here: www . pinkbike . com /forum/listcomments/?threadid=118903&pagenum=137

Sorry for the long post, but any help would be appreciated.

Rick Lund-Pedersen

From the pictures that you have provided, it sure looks like a Trek to me. I started selling Treks around 1980 -1981 and every picture that I see reminds me of a Trek built frameset.

Serial number is not Trek, therefore not a Trek. Unless the serial number was somehow removed and replaced with that very sloppy 424769. Either way, you will not be able to identify it as a Trek.

Also I believe all the Treks of that era were still silver brazed not brass. But I could be wrong.

Well you can check Vintage Trek to get alot of info on vintage Treks from the 80's.
http://www.vintage-trek.com/
I for one think there is very good chance it is not a Trek 700's series from the 80's but something else. There are a lot of details that don't seem to match Paint colour, lack of Trek imbosing on chain stays and fork crown, chrome under coat, serial number and frame geometry. Yet this is a very nice bike which seems on par with 80's 600/700 series Trek frame wise, similar quality type lug work nicely finished, with what is very likely a nice tubeset.

+1 Good point I missed that yes all of the 500+ Treks are listed as silver brazed through most of the 80's. At least till 85 when they stopped listing this detail on there spec sheets. The style of brass brazing and fork crown whould be much more consistant with a better built British bike as the OP currently suspects it is.
























Good point i missed

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

At this point what through's me off is the compination of high end Shimano dropouts on the rear and what you have ID as a Haden fork on the front. This combo just doesn't seem to make a lot off sense! Unless it was a limited production Japanese made to fit production spec/costs for limeted contract, a lesser better guality British frame builder using whatever frame parts they could get at a good price to try and survive. As for bike history the bike boom 71-76 domestic bikes sales for adult models went from 1 to 6 million very conservative and the bust 79-84 from 6/7 high million down to under 2 million. Along with major advancements in basic tech most frame builders did not survive of the 300+400 that could have built this frame in the early 80's world wide maybe a dozen have survied.

I thought that maybe the fork had been replaced, but it has the same Reynolds stamping on the steer tube as well as Shimano SF fork drop outs.

Also it looks like an assembly line job since one of the fork tubes has the vent hole on the outside not the inside. I think two of the same side were grabbed from the piles during construction.

300-400 Manufacturers? Yikes.

Any idea how common Reynolds tubing was for building with in Japan?

Also any idea how common it was/is for the tubing to be stamped with Reynolds Butted?

I forgot about the Shimano dropouts. That also leads me to believe it's Japanese. Other countries could and did use them (Trek for example!) but Japanese is the best guess. Look up the popular Japanese brands and see what they offered in 531. That's where I'd start anyway.

BB is 68mm English I assume. Seatpost, 27.2mm? That may narrow it down a bit more.

Yes, BB is English. Seatpost is 27.2.

The night before last I traded this mystery for a frame that needs some elbow grease.

This frame has a pretty relaxed geometry and I tend to like a more aggressive bike.

I ended up with a Le Croco, which is Canadian, it is made from 753 Reynolds, and it is a very short wheelbase with tight tire clearances and should have very responsive steering.

So far, so good on my clean up of it. I will likely have to refinish it, but time will tell.

Thanks for the info. Now, don't come on here and tell me that the mystery is solved, and it is a super grail bike that I could have retired on even with the molested condition it was in.

Rick