gomango

Agreed, such a nice bike.

I bought my John Hollands many years ago for a bunch of reasons. One of those were the three water bottle/aux. mounts.

That extra one on the bottom has come in handy more than once.

cycleheimer

1978 Motobecane Grand Touring. I really like this one, and figure it fits in here. Nice original combination of internationally sourced parts on a beautiful French frame. It is actually converting me into a Francophile. The folks at Motobecane seemed to know how to build bikes back in the '70's. The paint job, with hand-painted detaing, is fantastic! 12-26-19 update: '78 GT in gun metal gray, which is the other color they came in that year. This one was probably made a week before the champagne gold one.

Vintage_Cyclist

I love my Grand Touring.

Miele Man

I have an old MIELE UNO that originaly had 27" wheels and side pull brakes. I took it to True North Bicycles (custom bicycle builder) in Belwood Ontario Canada and Hugh Black added braze-ons for the cantilever brakes, cantilever brak cable stop, rear rack mounts on the seatstays and a third set of bottle mounts under the downtube. he did the work in one hour whilst I waited (so I'd not have to go all the many miles back just to pick up the frame) and he only charged me a total of $65.00 Canadian. The bike can take fenders and 30mm knobby cyclo-cross tires.

Here's the bike repainted.

#04a Miele Uno L.S. Rebuilt 4 Touring - Added Bottle Mount, Canti-brake Studs & Bridge by Miele Man, on Flickr

With the panniers mounted.

#04b Miele Uno L.S. Rebuilt 4 Touring - Added Bottle Mount, Canti-brake Studs & Bridge by Miele Man, on Flickr

On an extremely hot and humid day for this area.

#04g Miele Uno L.S. Rebuilt 4 Touring - Thermoses Keep Water Cold on Very Hot Days by Miele Man, on Flickr

Cheers

ryansu

+2 on the MotoGT

[IMG]IMG_1034 by Ryan Surface, on Flickr[/IMG]

Doohickie

I think this one fits. A 1983 Raleigh Super Course.

Wildwood

That's simply nice @Doohickie. Understated & classic.


As my contribution, and must qualify my comment by admitting to having skipped most prior entries, I believe i have 2 (or 3) that fit my definition of Sports/Tourer = simply - 1. At least one set of eyelets, 2. Non-racing/triathlon geometry.
Both currently wear fenders, no racks or touring this summer.

beance

I'm loving all these beauties!

amedias

Hi guys, sorry to dig up a slightly old thread but I'm a new member and was drawn here as trying to find out more info about the older US Treks (for a 650B conversion), I'm in England and we just don't have access to the older Treks like you do but stumbled on this thread in my search as 'Sports Tourers' are exactly my kind of bike, over here they're pretty synonymous with 'Audax' bikes though.

I'll post a few of my machines up a bit later as I think they fit your definition, a Singular Osprey, a Mercian Audax, a Mercian Classic/Olympic, and a Mercian King of Mercia, although that one has cantis it's 531c and definitely more Audax/ST geometry but cantis for bigger tyre clearance.

amedias

apparently I can;t post pics until I have 10 posts :-(

beicster 

I can't speak for everyone, but I love it when someone brings up an old thread. It gives me a chance to read them as I am relatively new around here.

bikemig 

Not really an older thread as this is periodically updated with new content. Agreed that a sports touring is an audax bike. Older racing bikes are basically sports touring/audax bikes as well as they had eyelets and had sufficient room for a 28c tire and a fender. Looking forward to seeing the pics.

amedias

I'll be back to post them as soon as I've made enough contributions for the forum to let me!

cheers

due ruote 

Reposting my Ross as the previous pic seems to have vanished. I'll blame it on PB.

palincss

I think my 1963 Jack Taylor Sports qualifies.

2cam16

I'll throw in my 1972 Lambert SS which I finished a few months ago:
IMG_0973 by 2cam16, on Flickr

amedias

here you go!





This is my Singular Osprey which I absolutely love and use for most things, some club runs, training rides, and most audaxes between 100km and 400km. It's supremely comfy, and deceptively fast! This has some quite peculiar geometry but it works very well indeed. It's short in the top tube but with a slack head angle and lots of fork offset, run with a longer than normal stem and the cockpit length is the same as a longer TT bike, but you get a lot more weight over the front for grip, but the slack angle and offset make it incredibly comfy and it still maintains a wheelbase of 997mm so is still nippy.
I'm running 28s under the guards but could probably squeeze 30 or 32s with wider guards. It's had a few spec changes over the last few years while I settled on the gearing options, currently 10 speed Campag ergos, with a Suntour VX rear mech, shifting over a custom spaced 8speed cassette 48/36/26 with 12-26, I live in the south west corner of England (Devon) and we have a lot of 20-30% short climbs and a lot of 10-20 slightly longer ones, it's hard to put a ride together with less than 1000ft per 10 miles round here so a nice wide range is necessary.



The Bianchi blue one is a Mercian Audax from early 00's is amy second option, a bit heavier, 32/35mm tyres, slightly different gearing using full Campag 8 speed with 48/38/24 and a 13-26, just as comfy as the Singular but not quite as sprightly. I tend to use when exploring new routes at slower pace or if I know the roads are going to be particularly awful. Despite looking tiny it has a very low BB which drops the whole bike (hence short HT) and it is just as long as the purple and orange Mericans below and longer in the TT than the Singular above so fits me equally as well as the others even though it doesn't look like it!



The orange one is 90s Mercian King of Mercia built custom (picured while i was re-taping the bars), this is a very unusual KOM in that it's got their Audax geometry and is built of 531c, but uses canti brakes and can clear 35mm tyres with guards, or 40s without. It also has a slightly extended headtube for some extra bar height and I use this when I know the roads are going to be especially bad or include some off-road sections, or sometimes when I just want to go a bit slower. It's currently set up with 9 speed dura ace/ultegra mix drivetrain using down tube shifters and a 42/26 with 11-32 for a more off-road capable setup.



The purple Mercian is an Olympic/Classic from the mid 80s built wiht 531ST, set up SS and used for shorter audax rides and some club runs/exploring rides, it actually has loads of clearance but a poor choice of narrow guards is currently limiting it to 'big 23s/small 25s' and until I get round to changing the guards it'll stay that way. It does currently have dynamo lighting on it too though but that was fitted after the pic.

due ruote 

^wow; amazing stable. The ergo/Vx combo is a surprise. How hard was it to work out the spacing?

Hudson308 

So THAT'S what the Lambert triple looks like! I bought a Grand Prix 15-speed for parts awhile back, but it was missing the triple crank. I've seen lugged Viscounts, but I've never seen a lugged Lambert before.

jpaschall

Quite a nice collection up there. All unique

canklecat

This. By definition C&V threads can't be zombie threads. They're always relevant. I enjoy the thread bumps.

amedias

Thanks, I have some more sports and less tourer retro machines too, Woodrup, Trek and a Bontrager Road Lite, but this isn't the thread for them :-)

Getting the Ergos to index with the VX wasn't all that hard....

10speed Camapg with Shimano rear mech over a Shimano 8speed cassette is a pretty standard 'Shimergo' setup, and the derailleur ratio for the VX is pretty close to Shimano default SIS pull ratio.

There are two main issues you need to contend with:

1 - VX throw isn't enough for full cassette width
2 - due to 1 ^ at the end of the cassette the parallelogram is near it's limit so the shift ratio becomes smaller for the last 2-3 cogs.

The first issue, that the VX throw isn't quite enough to shift over the full width of an 8speed cassette in some cases is fairly trivial and you might get lucky anyway, you might not depending on the actual number of mm between the start of the cassette and the dropout.
This one is easily dealt with either by placing a small (1mm normally enough) spacer behind the cassette to push it out a smidge, as long as your lockring is deep enough to engage enough threads, and you haven't spaced it out so far that you have chain/dropout clearance issues then you're normally good to go at this point. If you do have issues with either thread/lockring engagement then another option is to use a thinner locknut/washers on the drive side axle and slightly redish the wheel. If you can;t be bothered with either of those options then you're just gonna have to lose a cog and run 7 speed - big deal :-D

The second issue, non-linear pull ratio isn't too hard to deal with either as long as you use a cassette that you can separate the sprockets on, so cheaper Shimano and Campag ones without alloy carriers basically. all you need to do is replace the spacers between the last 2 or 3 sprockets with slightly thinner ones (or grind down the ones you have), about 0.25 - 0.35mm thinner normally does the trick depending on the actual sprocket thickness. You can of course do this with most 5/6/7 speed freewheels too as the cogs are easily removed, but you'll have to do more grinding work to get them down to the nominal 4.8mm spacing (4.5ish for the top couple) as they'll have been wider spaced than that before. Once you've done this the last 2-3 sprockets are just that little bit closer together and match the reduced derailleur movement.

You can sometimes get them to shift over a standard Shimano 4.8mm spacing cassette without modifications in some cases, but the last few shifts might be slow or need some persuasion so the re-spacing just helps tune it back to how it should be. If you're going to lose a cog and run 7 speed you might not even need to re-space at all.

I absolutely love the VX mechs and they last for ever, the shift is lighter compared to both the full Campag and Shimergo setup, and I get the added benefit of using 7/8 speed parts which are not only cheaper but last longer. You do have to stick with older style rear sprocket ranges though, ie: start your cassette at 13 or 14t, none of this 11t nonense! The shortcage VX will work with a 12 though, and up to a 26t. The longer cage VX-GT isn't really happy with <13 as a starter but will accomodate a 32t big sprocket!

ollo_ollo

Picked up today & tentatively identified as a 1st generation Lotus Classique,
"A classic lightweight sport/touring bike for those who love quick and responsive handling"~~from the 1981 Sales Catalog ~~

I believe it's likely a 1982 model, based upon following:

Fragile/mostly missing blue decals, Brass head badge, Tange Champion No. 1 tubes, Shimano 600 Arabesque group, Crank has a chain guard, alloy Shimano 600 headset. Ukai 700 x 25c rims.

Rear derailleur is unlike any 600 Arabesque I have seen(but the large "A" pierced by Shimano seems a possible late variant, plus I haven't seen more than a few dozen specimens of the more common two).

Despite the many chips & scrapes, the wheels are true and the braking surfaces only lightly worn. This will be my Winter project. Don

higgins617

Late 90s Shimano Acera mountain bike derailleur. typically 7 speed. Solid, reliable, far from noteworthy

ollo_ollo

Thanks Higgins, I'm not up on mountain bikes, only have 1 in the herd.

I should be able to find a nice Arabesque rear DR to get it back to original spec. Although Lotus used 600 Arabesque components on other models, the Classique was the 1st Lotus to use all Arabesque according to vintagelotusbicycles.com Don