I was vacationing abroad last week, and one night I was browsing the classifieds for a possible 'Clunker 100 Challenge' contenders on my phone as I came across a 'Sprinter' racing bike. Now, 'Sprinter' sounds very much like a department store brand (check) and on the small pic on my phone it looked pretty much complete - except for the pedals (check) and it looked like my size (check). The geometry also looked pretty good (check). So I offered €50, which would leave me some budget for the pedals, cables, and perhaps an inner tube or two.

This is what it looked like on my phone:



The seller got back to me and after some back-and-forthing we agreed on €65.

I picked up the bike two nights ago and as soon as I held it in my hands I knew I had made a mistake.

This is not a cheap department store bike.

I had a closer look when I got home, and this is what I found: pretty tight racing geometry, remnants of a Reynold 531 'tubes, forks and stays' decal, 27.2mm seat post, what looks to be a replacement fork, a fair amount of cut-outs, pins in the BB shell and a 1.37 x 24 BB. No serial number. The finish is a little rough. As pictured the bike weighs exactly 10 kilograms (22 lbs).

Has anyone ever come across the 'Sprinter' brand? Any idea who might have built this?

More pics:

That's an interesting bike at a great price based on the frame spec's and details almost sure it is a full 531 frame set. I have never seen the brand before or a lot of the components like the Cherry brakes or road V crank but they look to be of good quality. I think this will make a great inexpensive build that you can ride for years.

So many components are Japanese and then we see the 3T stem, handle bar. Thinking this was added by the PO.

Nice looking and should clean up great. It's no RIH

It looks Japanese to me. Great and unusual find, and certainly a marque I have not encountered before. (Where I live, a Sprinter is a light rail commuter train. SPRINTER | NCTD )

I don't know about the Cherry equipment, but the crank is a Suntour Road Vx.

what country did you find this in? could the dropouts be Shimano? the BB shell is slotted but looks like it's welded and the brazing details look a little bit crude so: "mass-produced" which makes me doubt the 531 decal as authentic...ant chance the word on the bottom of the seat tube decal (with World Champ stripes) could be SUPERIA?

I found the bike in the southern part of The Netherlands. There's another one currently for sale in the same area, which has Huret honeycomb dropouts and looks to be a rebranded Gitane. I've also seen a Sprinter folder in Belgium.

I have no reason to doubt the 531 decal. The light weight of the bike and the 27.2 mm seatpost diameter support it, and the decal looks to be as old as the other decals. The dropoouts are indeed Shimano.

The seat tube decal says 'Cycles Sprinter Super'.

I think you're right in looking for a Belgian connection, though. My best guess so far is that 'Sprinter' is an LBS brand, possibly from the Helmond area, and that this particular bike was made by one of the Belgian makers that have provided many so-called 'no name' frames to many bike shops in Holland and Belgium during the seventies and eighties.

I'd love to know which one, though.

While the bike looks competent for what it is, the parts seem sorta underwhelming for a Reynolds 531 frame. The "Sprinter" font on the downtube is pretty BA, imo, and brings my interest level up a notch. Nice find; I always take a shining to the odd ones.

Vx was Suntour's top of the line until Cyclone came out, then Superbe, and even then, Vx is the proverbial "good stuff."

In the 78-81 Trek catalogs, Vx is the only Suntour 'group' offered, even after the introduction of Cyclone and Superbe. (go figure...) On Ishiwata, Reynolds and Columbus frames.

With Dutch bicycle manufacturers good value for not too much money has always been important. Suntour Vx fits that picture. Gazelle used to mount a SunTour V-Luxe transmission on their touring versions of the Champion Mondial. And even then those were just about the most expensive touring bikes in the market.

I'm keeping it on for the time being. I'm currently putting the bike back together after a clean & grease, and I've replaced the Shimano shifters with a correct pair of Road Vx examples that I had in the bin.

Agree on the decals. Very seventies. It's a pity that the waterslide decals have slid a little too much in some places.

Possibly some Suntour Blueline or Superbe would have gave it some more "punch" parts wise. Don't get me wrong, I like Suntour stuff as much as the average C&V'er, preferring it to the Shimano stuff of that era, especially the entry level/work horse derailleurs. But, they lacked pizzazz. The logo is dripping with pizzazz, so the components could have used some help keeping up, just saying. But, function wise, they were probably at the top of the awesome scale, for their era. If I thought they were original to the bike, I would have a hard time swapping them out, even for something with better bling value.

I remember you saying as such in regards to bike manufactures being quick to use early Japanese stock components. One reason I equipped my Belgique bike with Suntour VX components as well.

Nice catch there.

The seventies were good to the Japanese here in The Netherlands. Until then the anti-Japanese sentiments had been very strong as a result of what happened in Indonesia during WWII, but as the baby boomers hit the market things changed. Companies like Sony, Toyota and Mazda found good importers in the Benelux, and they paved the way for others.

In the bike market Andries Gaastra founded Koga-Miyata and became the distributor for Shimano, who'd already made an excellent move by sponsoring the best cycling team in the world at the time, Flandria's red brigade, to launch their Dura-Ace product line.

At the same time Campagnolo wasn't delivering, and especially when Shimano introduced 600 EX it filled a fairly huge gap.

Put the Sprinter back together again and took it for a spin around the block to get an idea of how it rides before I spend more time and money on it. First impressions are favorable, it feels quite light and nimble.

[MENTION=173992]non-fixie[/MENTION] Looks like a nice ride. A little different from your other nice riders too. Love those Cherry brake levers. Shimano sure went the extra mile making their standard components look fancy back then. I see you had an Ambrosio HB sticker on there. Was the tape Ambrosio too?

Update. I think that the 'Sprinter' brand was not really a brand, at least not with these decals. I just found these among a collection of generic bike decals:



My impression is that these could be bought to spruce up a bike after a repaint. Just like the 'Record'-branded Mercier I have, sporting these decals. From the same supplier, no doubt:

So it's not really in the cards to identify the maker, huh? Still cleaned up nice!

Nice find! Welcome to the "High End" division of the Clunker Challenge. Don

The odds certainly don't look good, but who knows. It wouldn't be the first time a bike on this forum takes ten years to identify.

Thanks! I don't think I have any bike in this size that's any lighter, so the Reynolds tubing decal could well be legit.

Does the paint at the seat stay ends look original? They aren't a waterslide... maybe they are as much a "signature" as a, well, signature.

I had never heard of Wheeler cycles out of Taiwan - they have been making bikes since 1972.
Couldn't find info on their site about what was produced in the lugged days.
Below is my Zero bike at my sister's house, a long way from Seattle = Arkansas.

The generic decal set sure is a close match.

This seat stay cap decal, you mean? At least it looks like some sort of decal to me. It didn't come from the set I posted earlier, but I've seen similar on mainly Belgian frames that were imported to Holland to be sold under different brand names, but those were all older, mostly from the late sixties and early seventies.

Yeah, that thing. Sorry, I didn't even recognize it as a decal. I thought it was painted on, thus giving a possible clue to the origins of the bike. I blame my lack of helpful observation on three things... 1) old eyes, B) a small viewing screen, and 3) my total ignorance of Belgian bicycles. I would have never guessed a small feature like that would be shared by different brands (although, some bike manufactures did produce different brands for distribution reasons, didn't they...)