Zebrakenko Record Tour
 

I picked this up off of the Philly CL for $50. Low res pics and no real description. I was going to walk away but it was less than 10 minutes from my place so I caved......

As found.
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Sugino Triple
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Suntour Cyclone GT
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Barcons, Sunshine Pro Am hubs, Gran Compe side pull brakes and some ancient quilted saddle completed the scene. The front derailleur was gone. The seller said that the band clamp had cracked and he removed it. The bike was his Dad's and was used very little.

All of this seemed pretty normal for buying a used, seemingly lower end bike with some nice components on CL. What struck me as odd was when I got home and broke the bike all the way down. I hung it from my digital scale and the was surprised to see it weighed 6.3lbs for the frame and fork. I thought it must be wrong but after re-setting and re-weighing 3 times, it kept coming out the same. Wow. Seemed really light for something that I am pretty sure has a Hi-Ten fork.

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It came with 27" wheels and out of curiosity it hew a set of 700c wheels w/32mm tires. Wow. Plenty of room for 32mm tires and fenders.

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The lug work actually looked pretty good. (The flash killed the paint color)

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The cranks cleaned up really easily and and I was surprised to find they were 165mm Wow. Who puts that size crank on a 60cm touring bike as spec?

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All in all a cool find with some weird twists. I found this link to review of the bike by Gary Fisher from Bicycling in July of 1978.

<------ Bicycling Magazine 07-1978 ------> Zebrakenko Record Tour / Country Road

The second page of the review, which has the specs, shows that the bike was pretty much all original shape as purchased. The tubing is listed as "Speed Gallant" and I think that is Ishiwata 022. Oh and it has a really cool headbagde.

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This is a really cool find. The parts are worth more than you paid for the bike. I've been looking for a long cage cyclone RD for a while; the crank and the other parts are pretty sweet as well. Cool old Japanese touring bikes just don't pop up every day.

The review by Gary Fisher is just icing on the cake, :).

I snagged a '79 Kenko last spring and refurbished it to use as a summer beater. Same headbadge thats on yours...just an awesome design.

The spec on my bike was odd too. Hiten tubing and fork, yet aluminum hubs and rims, and all alloy components.
Interesting mix of entry level and midlevel.

Short cranks for larger frames, higher components than youd figure...maybe they spec'd based on what was cheapest and readily available.

Really cool bike. I have no idea, but do you think they'd really use forged dropouts on a high-ten fork?

I don't know. The crown looks like a a cheapie and I could not find a stamp of any kind on the steerer tube.

Yeah, I guess like [MENTION=385973]mstateglfr[/MENTION] said, high-ten fork with nice dropouts makes sense if you're designing a bike around what bits you got a deal on.

That's a relatively high end bike, in fact it was probably the top of their touring range. What makes you think it's low end? Forged cranks, Cyclone derailleur, forged dropouts, Gran compe brakes? It's all fancy stuff.

AFA the fork crown, I agree it looks a bit clunky but that's just 70's style... The frame is spec'd as Ishiwata and all the components are top shelf. It's very unlikely that it's a hi ten fork.

If you ever want to trade that crankset for something longer, please let me know.

It is a cro-moly fork. I have one that I bought in 1978. I toured on it, commuted on it and just rode it. I'm converting it to 650B. It has room for 42mm tires and fenders. I measured the fork offset at 57mm so that should result in a trail of about 43mm.

The head tube takes a .833 stem.

Thanks for the info!

Probably just an "experience bias" on my part. Most of the Japanese bikes of this era I have encountered have been inconsistent in their design/execution. Seems as if this one is not to be lumped into to that group. :thumb:

As I recall there were a few quality control problems. The wheels were laced x3 with spokes that were too long. I used the same spokes to lace it up x4. But the design of the frame is very sound; it is as if it were designed for 650B or maybe 650A.

Pretty nice bike. Very nice components. Ride it well!

(Yeah, that is a cool head badge.)

+1, it's atypical to find forged dropouts on hi-tensile forks during this era. Also, a CrMo fork is likely to have have alpha-numeric date code on the steerer tube. The crankest dates to May 1974 and Cyclone came out in 1975, so it's probably a 1975 model. Given the apparent 3 model year difference, it could be a different tubeset but it's pretty easy to verify if it is Ishiwata 022 Speed Gallant, as the typical post size was 27.2mm. I'd appreciate the serial number for my database. TIA.

I had a ZK with Suntour Blue Line components. Found it for 10.00 at a thrift shop and fixed it up for a friend. Very unusual Japenese bikes. I miss mine.

Thanks for the info. Serial number is: D6F2503 so 1976 perhaps? Pretty sure the seat tube is 26.8.

Thxs. That's a common serial number format, so I'd agree with 1976, either either June or the 6th fortnight. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any D-codes using this format, so I can't identify the manufacturer.

Given the 26.8mm post size, there is a good probabitiy that that is actually Tange Champion tubing. A Tange steerer would increase the confidence level to near absolute. Unfortunately, unlike most other tubing manufacturers, Tange used double double butted seat tubes and it was a thickness for #1 , #2 and #3 . To make things worse, the top butt was same thickness as plain gauge #5 ! Still, the most likely candidate is Tange #2 , as it closest to Ishiwata 022.