tendency

Found one - and she's a beaut. Curiously, this one, which is clearly a 3rensho frame, came with (according to the catalog) the 1984 Tange fork. The obvious conclusion is San Rensho built what appears to be a very small percentage of the '84 Specialized Allez's. Gorgeous frames - if I give a good ding to the top tube or downtube with my index finger the frame rings like a tuning fork for a good 15 seconds - something I've only seen on the finest steel frames.








ahhhh..those beautiful 3rensho lugs..





another dead-ringer clue it's 3rensho built: the 'EO Medalist' bottom bracket simply stamped with the frame size.

ramzilla

Wow. Beautiful. Post some pictures after it's finished.

unworthy1

Yep, it sure has some Konno earmarks, a real find! Too bad about the fork, but can't win 'em all!

Andy_K 

Looks great!

Can you post a close up picture of the downtube shifter boss? It looks like something unusual is going on there.

tendency

Ah good eye! That's just part of the shift lever that I forgot to remove..nothing wrong with the boss

URCinelliIsFake

rotfl ! ! ! !

AdventureManCO 

???

OP, nice find.

merziac

True that AND we need an update.

Also looks like maybe this frame had the fork robbed which doesn't really make sense if it had a Tange unless they were offset like the originals.

tendency

Turns out I was mistaken. I tracked down the seller and he said the person that he had bought it from had put a carbon fiber fork on it and disposed of the original

georges1

Very nice steel bike , lovely frame. I like it much better than what specialized procudes today. Specialized made a very limited number of commemorative allez in reynolds 853 tubing very expensive specialized allez 40th anniversary in reynolds 853 and only built in 74 examples

Robvolz 

I was at Merz’s house over thanksgiving and saw what looks like it’s twin.

merziac

So the frame is waiting for a fork, miracle, divine intervention?

unworthy1

I'm a bit confused re: the original fork.
Were the Allez frames (built in the Konno shop) given Tange forks (I would presume the frame tubes to be Ishiwata, but is that correct)?
If the entire frameset was made from Tange tubing did the Allez use the Konno offset fork crown or...?

merziac

?

That is a very early Merz with the first gen DT art by Virginia. The Allez may share DNA with this but I think that's about it.

swen0171 

Grail!! And my size!! Congrats. Seems like it deserves a custom fork.

tendency

No, 3Rensho built Allez's were all made (fork included) from Ishiwata 019. I was mistaken that the 84's had a Tange fork. The original fork on mine had 1) been replaced by a carbon model by first owner, 2) 2nd owner got rid of carbon and put a generic Tange steel fork back on it. I currently have it built up w/ a 3Rensho track fork.

tendency

Yeah it was one of my grail bikes too. Had to hunt quite awhile looking for either a 63cm 3Rensho steel frame or one of the Specialized 3Rensho built ones.

merziac

Pics, thread?

Realize I probably missed it along the way.

mhespenheide 

Just as a point of information, Ishiwata uses the same thickness for all of its major fork blades: 019 is no thinner than 021 or 022. If you wanted to look for another replacement or compare vintage forks.

TiHabanero

Those vintage Allez frames are the only road frames Specialized had made that are worthy of a place in my collection. Have a fork made to fit the bike. Should be somewhat affordable.

Andy_K 

IMO, all of the early Specialized frames were very well made. I don't know if I'd consider a 3Rensho-built Allez with a replacement fork to be any more collectible than an average Allez from the same period, but it would still be a very nice bike.

merziac

Depends on your definition of affordable, I shopped around for forks a couple of times recently.

A decent custom fork runs $5-700 all day long now days.

You can buy some pretty nice donors for that kind of coin.

tendency

I went so far as to contact Koichi Yamaguchi who has been working out of Rifle Colorado for a number of years now and is still building bikes. He was one of Konno's first master builders who left in the early 80s soon after 3Rensho was starting to build the Allez's. He had some interesting info having built a number of the early Allez's. He said they originally used Cinelli fork crowns until they ran out then switched to Yoshi's offset design.

Anyhow, I wanted to see if he had a cache of the offset fork crowns to build up into a replacement fork but alas, he's looking for some as well I figure if I ever did get a replacement fork built up for it I'd have him do it as it would be about as close to original provenance as I can get.

Andy_K 

Wait! Are you saying that there are 3Rensho-built Allez out there that don't have the offset fork crown? That's always the defining mark that people look for before agreeing that it was built at 3Rensho.


It seems very close to me. I always think of these as 3Rensho-built rather than Konno-built because I expect by then Yoshi Konno himself probably wasn't building contract bikes like this but rather having his apprentices do that. The results were outstanding, but if you look at things like the lug filing, 3Rensho-branded bikes tend to be a bit more refined than the Specialized bikes built by 3Rensho.

tendency

I'm just quoting from what Koichi told me via email. As I recall, there have been a few 'mystery' early Allez's, posted on this forum, that did not have the offset fork crown and people were kinda stumped by them. Maybe they are some of these very early 3Rensho built models.