Fuji Frame as a Project. Thoughts?
 

Happy New Year Everyone,

I've run across a Fuji Roubaix frame that I'm considering purchasing to cut my teeth on for my first full rebuild and would like any insight on the frame. The frame is decently priced, shows the wear & tear expected for a 20+ year old frame, and would offer the mechanical & cosmetic challenges to hone my skills. It comes with a Shimano 600 headset and a Suntour BB. I have most of the other components to build up the frame in order to keep the cost low with the exception of the wheels but I can swap out the wheels from my other bikes until I scavenge up some. Plus, using the Fuji as a guinea pig prevents me from tinkering too deeply on my other bikes and screwing them up.

As far as I can tell, it is a 1992 frame with Tange cromo double butted tubing while the fork is Ishiwata Extreme cromo. I was confused on the Tange decal in that all the brochure info on Classic Fuji showed that Fuji used Ishiwata tubes up to 1991, but then the information well runs dry on the net about Fuji bikes in the 1990s. I saw a thread on BF where someone purchased a Fuji Team frame back in 2009 which had the same tube decals as the Roubaix so that mitigated my concerns about possible decal replacement. From other websites, this Tange tubing appears to be slightly "lower" end tubing compared to other tubing Tange had available at the time. I'm just surprised that Fuji would opt for this Tange tubing for a road/racing frame that appears to have been the 2nd or 3rd tier down from the top.

Sheldon Brown's website indicates that Fuji was late in moving production away from Japan when the dollar crashed in the late 80's / early 90's. It's his opinion that the build quality of the Fuji frames suffered when production moved to other asian countries as part of their learning curve during the early 90s.

So, what's everyone's thoughts? Anyone have any experience with Fuji frames from the '90s? Any know problems with this generation of Fuji? Anyone knows how it would ride? My thoughts are that whatever frame I pick to play with that I at least want a bike at the end that I would want to ride, at least for a while.

Thanks in advance!

At some point in the late 80's everything changed in the Japanese bike industry. Suntour vanished. Fuji started installing Shimano parts on all their bikes and, the whole Japanese bicycle manufacturing system moved to Taiwan. For most of the early 90's the Taiwan factories were still cranking out traditional steel bikes with lugged frames. But, eventually at some point in the 90's lugged bikes disappeared too. By 2000 workers were replaced by robots. Steel bike frame technology evolved into mass produced electro-forged BSO's. Bikes lost their personality. If you've got one of the last lugged frames then the good news is you can still get brand new threaded parts for it. Be good. Have fun.

That's how it always is in the beginning........

Thoughts...

- surprised Tange tubing was used. Fuji was using Ishiwata thru '91 for sure.
- i wouldnt give a second thought to building up the frame. Its a 90s steel frame...frames were so standardized and well made at that point there shouldn't be anything wonky like from the 70s.
- i have a touring frame made by fuji in '90 and love it. Standardized, well built, nothing negative. That was made by fuji and no contracted out though.
- by '92, Taiwan was well established as a build location. Giant especially- they had been building bikes for other brands for well over 15 years by '92 and the 80s were crazy busy for them between 3rd party manufacturing and starting its own brand(meaning the process would have been smooth by '92).

If it fits and is in good condition, there shouldn't be any reason to not ride it for years.

I picked up a mid 1990s model, used it as a donor bike (8 speed 105 STI as I recall). I then rebuilt it with RX100 downtube 7 speed. The 105 bits went onto a Cannondale that got better response in my market.

If it fits, I'd go for it. Find a deal on a donor bike, that will save you a ton of $$. That way, you learn frame building and saving money at the same time! My favorite group for that era is 8 speed trips-color STI. I recently bought a Cannondale to harvest that group, will rebuild the Cannondale with RSX.

Building up a frame at a cost at or below buying a complete bike used is VERY challenging. It really takes a second score on a donor bike. So on builds I usually wait for the donor bike find before I start the build.

Last donor bike I picked up was a late 1990s Specialized Allez Pro. Full 8 speed tricolor STI bike. Sizable dent in the frame, so it went to the co-op. Bought it at a Play it Again Sports. They were kind of shady, tried to hide the TT dent by placing the price sticker right over it...... The best donors are ones where the sale of the left over frame covers its cost. Those are harder to find. Craziest one I have ever done was on a Merlin. Who parts out a Merlin? Well, I "needed" the Dura Ace 7700 group for another build.... And the price of the Merlin was very attractive.