Gardin Ultima
 

Thinking of picking up this Gardin.When i look at the space between reat tire and downtube it looks like a touring bike,what do you think? It has an Ultima sticker as the model, i don,t think any of the drivetrain is OEM. Thanks

https://images.craigslist.org/00l0l_...t2_300x300.jpg

Touring spacing, yup. Hard to tell anything else with small pic and no description. Is there a link to an ad or you keeping mum? ;)

Mums the word

Doesn't look like it has double eyelets on the back though, and looks like they used p-clamps for the rack. Paint looks a bit scratched on the rear. But yeah, that does look like there's a lot of space between the tire and the seat tube.

OP, there's no other online examples I can find of that geometry on an Ultima, so be wary.

Thats what i found as well. Seller does not seem to want to respond so it may be moot.

Fork rake and brake clearance don't shout touring.

The Gardin Ultima that I've seen have been mid to late 1980s, sport models, positioned around the crossover between entry level and mid-range. The geometry fell between racing and touring.

One possibility for the large gap between the tyre and seat tube would be pushing the wheel to the back of the dropout slots. However, it looks like there would be a clearance issue at the brake bridge if it the wheel was pulled much farther forward and that clearance issue doesn't appear to be attributable to overly fat tyres being installed.

The gap actually reminds me of what was typical with many of the frames desiged for 650C wheelsets. The chainstays couldn't be shortened very much, due to the possibility of heel strike on the rear derailleur. However, these bicycles also give the appearance of a abnormally high BB (due to the lower wheel axles), which the subject bicycle does not appear to have. Regardless, I'm attaching a photo of a Nishiki Beta NFS with 650C wheels, that exhibits a similar size gap.

It's hard to identify the actual reason for the large gap, given the single and poor photo. Things might become readily evident with more and better photos.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...405a7ff1ec.jpg

I can’t believe none of you guys have that fancy photo software like on the cop tv shows. You know the stuff they use to look at a tattoo on a guy in a dark alley a mile away from the 1970s security camera