b dub 

beautiful classic bike you have there. What pedals / half clip combo are you sporting? Update: you answered this already, sorry

IsleRide 

Thanks. Half clips are V-O. Have them on a couple of bikes. Wish they were still available.

nlerner

This thread inspired me to measure some chainstays on the fleet. Interestingly, the relatively modern bikes that get ridden the most have 43cm-length stays. My 2020 Rivendell Roadini has 44cm stays, so a bit longer. My '74 Raleigh Int'l has 43cm stays. The only thing significantly shorter is my Lemond Zurich with 41cm stays (and I really like the way it rides; great climber and very stable descender).

Het Volk

My favorite bike to ride is my Gios Compact Pro, which has 39.5CM chain stays. Really great bike to ride. But no way would I want that to make that a touring bike. I think the longer chainstays nowadays is due to increased tire sizes becoming more popular, and therefore, the really short chainstays are likely a thing of the past outside of TT specific bikes.

IsleRide 

I rode a Lemond Zurich for 17 years. It excelled as a climber no doubt due to the 72 degree seat tube angle and the lightness of the 853 frame. If I still owned it I probably wouldn't ride it as much but I do miss it.

Hobbiano 

That looks pretty nice! Is it mostly as originally equipped? Actually, looking at it closer, it looks like all the parts belong on it, but I think maybe just the seatpost and possibly the stem came with the bike? Very nice.

Roger M 

Might catch flack for the bars(with the sport touring crowd)...

ShannonM

I'd put the mid-80s Fuji Club / League in at the sportier end of the sport-touring continuum.

43.2 cm chainstays. Longer than the full race bikes (41 cm) but shorter than the touring bikes (44 cm).
73 degree parallel angles, vs race bikes (75s / 74h) and touring bikes (73s / 72h)
50 mm fork rake, in between race (40) and touring (65), yields 50 mm trail.
Single rear eyelets, none on the fork.
Standard reach sidepull brakes.
110 mm double crank.

--Shannon

romperrr 

Nice build! Peculiar that there's no fork eyelets. Are you sure the fork is original?

ShannonM

Yep... has Fuji fork crown, and that's what the catalog shows. And, yeah, it's kinda weird. The front fender uses PDW's skewer mount, which works well but turns the quick release into a slow release. If I'd built it, I'd have used p-clamps, but I bought it mostly as is.

All I did was convert it from a 42x16 singlespeed to a 42x14-26 6-speed.

Full story here.

--Shannon

IsleRide 

Looks pretty darn good to me.

rccardr 

1978 Davidson custom with first gen Dura Ace:

bikemig 

That's a beautiful bike.

CO_Hoya 

Without scrolling back thru all of this, I did notice that there were several examples of the Centurion ProTour posted here, but that strikes me as more of a full-on touring bike than a sports tourer. For example:
I picked up a mid-70s SemiPro a couple of years ago, and I had thought that it slots better into this category (lighter tubing, single-eyelet dropouts, no posts for brakes, narrower gearing from factory).


But maybe it's not that simple, and my 21st-century perspective is biasing my categorization? I'm not in front of the bike to measure angles or chainstay length, but perhaps that's a better tell.


Honestly, mostly just looking for an excuse to repost a picture.

Pompiere

The earlier Fuji Clubs were a little more suited for mounting a rack and fenders. My son has a 1989 Fuji Club. By then, Fuji was marketing it toward triathletes and beginning racers, so the geometry is pretty tight and steep. It came with 23 mm tires and there isn't a lot of room for anything more than 25 (or 28 mm as long as they run small). Also there are no eyelets. front or rear. It is still a fun bike, and I have ridden it on longer rides, but only on supported tours where I didn't have to carry much.

Chuckk

1979 Echelon Odyssey (built by Cherubim)


1989 Davidson Discovery


1983 Austro-Daimler Inter-10


1985 Raleigh Team USA


1987 Mercian Olympic

Catnap 

i enjoyed reading through this thread and will add my own bikes at some point. but I came across this 3Rensho sport tourer today on the website of a Japanese pawn shop. I had no idea that Konno ever made bikes like these! I've never seen a San Rensho bike that wasn't either a track, road, or time trial before. I have to assume that based on the logo style and components that it dates from the 1970s or early 80s.

non-fixie 

Thanks for posting those, Chuck. Very nice!

Just curious: how does that Inter 10 compare to the others? I happen to have an Inter 10 (see post 501) and I've become rather fond of it, but I am not familiar with the others you posted.

non-fixie 

Thank you! That kind of confirms a conclusion I was about to come to, albeit reluctantly, after trying quite a few other bikes: it doesn't get much better than the Inter 10, at least not for the kind of riding I do.

don_87ST

All nice pics. I find the sport tourers so much more comfortable as I’ve gotten older. Still quick, but more more relaxed. My older cannondale ST have a beautiful ride and put my old criterium frame to shame.

Moisture

Here's a pic of my Nishiki Olympic Tri-A. The frame is much stiffer than my otherwise similar Norco Monterey. I haven't carried anything heavy with this bike yet, but back when I would ride my Norco, I weighed 200+lb and would occasionally carry up to 35lb without an issue on the bike.

bikemig 

For some odd reason, all of my favorite sports touring bikes are blue. I'm not going to run out of blue sports tourering bikes anytime soon since I have a blue 1968 Schwinn Paramount on the build queue.

I like them all but my favorite is likely the 1979 Trek 510:


1979 Trek 510

1970s Fuji Finest

1985 Cannondale ST 400

dddd

~1990 Klein Performance

ShannonM

No excuses needed. Not for a bike that looks this good.

That stem is the business. One the best looking stems I've ever seen. What is it?

--Shannon

Flatforkcrown

So this one seems to check all the boxes… long reach brakes, eyelets front and back, room for 32mm+ tires. 73 motobecane le champion