rickpaulos

Fixing up a Bimex Tour Master 10 speed from 1973 or 1974.
Serial number is 179 (early model or really low production)
Simplex rear derailleur is stamped 2 72
the SR Grand Silver aluminum cotter pin crank arm is dated 73.
the bike has Super Olimpic/66 center pull brake calipers, 1 Altenberger brake lever with adjustable suicide lever and 1 Dia Compe brake lever with Suicide lever.

The rest of the bike looks to be original. Simplex plastic derailleurs (1 broken jockey wheel) and levers.
Super Olimpic (or is that Olympic) hubs.
Leather Impacto saddle.


So what levers would have come with the bike? I'm not finding much info on Super Olimpic brake levers.

Aubergine 

Intriguing old beast. The brake calipers look like Weinmann Vainqueur copies, and similar to the Dia-Compe copies of said Weinmanns. So I'd look for Weinmann or Dia Compe levers.

juvela

-----

thanks for sharing this find - a new-to-me marque

Super Olimpic a producer of hubs, brakes and pedals

we only seemed to see them during the bike boom period - when the boom ended no more Super Olimpic

brake levers are illustrated at velobase -

https://velobase.com/ListComponents....a-5710c60dcf36

the DiaCompe & Altenburger brake levers were likely replacements for the Super Olimpic originals because the owner wanted extension levers

in my neck o' the woods, the San Francisco bay area, there was a Spaniard by the name of Francisco Val who went around to bike shops selling Spanish cycle goods from his car during the bike boom time. he was an agent for products such as Super Olimpic, Triplex gears, Notario pedals, ANPI saddle pillars, Rinder lighting equipment, etc.

Senor Val was mentioned in a BICYCLING! magazine article, would have been in the '72-'74 period

tip on the cycle's Sakae Ringyo chainset -

this is one of their early models which were made with wide (thick) chainwheel spacers to permit the running of the small/small gear combination without the chain rubbing on the inner face of the outer chainwheel

front shifts need to be made with authority; tentative shifts can result in the drive chain getting wedged between the chainwheels

thank you again for posting

-----

kroozer 

Bimex (Bicicletas de Mexico) has been around since 1951 according to their FB page. They are one of the main brands in Mexico, although I think everything is actually made in China these days. Currently it's all MTB's and kid's bikes. That's the first bike boom-era road bike I have seen, looks pretty interesting.

rickpaulos

My original intent was to make this as oem as possible but now, I'm going for rare bits. No Weinman or Dia Compe or Malliard or Shimano or Schwinn as those are just too common. And who knows what was oem on this bike anyhow.

The closer I look the more issues I find.

Rear hub is a Super Olimpic with Olympic rings. Nice aluminum shell with smooth bearings.
Rear skewer is a straight (pre cpsc) Shimano. Old enough but certainly not original.
Front hub is Alfa. Nice aluminum shell with smooth bearings. Shape is different from the rear hub.
Both the rims seem to be identical aluminum. No branding. If they had decals, those are long gone. Spokes match front vs rear wheels.
Front skewer is curved (cpsc version) with a logo I don't recognize. Photo below. Surely not original.

I read on the company site they had assistance from Raleigh when starting up. This bike does kinda look like a bike boom Raleigh Gran(d) Prix but with more aluminum components.

Stem is an SR but with a oversized wedge bolt head.

Aluminum Bulldog kickstand "Made in Western Germany".

Pedals are unbranded but look pretty vintage. Flat on both sides, chrome plated. In decent shape. I did have to straighten out the ends a little bit.

After finding more info on Olimpic, it appears they liked to copy others's designs. They had a Mafac racer look-a-like brake set, a Weinman copy and so on.

When I was in high school during the bike boom I got a job at the local Raleigh Pro Shop. The owners would order any brand of bikes they could get their hands on to sell as everything sold like crazy. There was a one time batch of Bimex 10-speed bikes. Maybe 10 or 20 bikes. Red, Blue and maybe a yellow one. At the time we weren't impressed. But some of the other brands were just awful. Maserati and Atala stood out as just really bad bikes. But they all sold. In retrospec, the Bimex wasn't that bad but sure didn't match the bling factor of most other brands. Just a boring looking bike. I saw one in a small Minnesota bike shop about 5 years ago. I don't know if it was a used bike or a customers repair bike. That one-armed-one-man bike shop was so small they didn't need tags. The situation really didn't allow for buying a bike in the middle of a bike tour. This blue Bimex came my way last year and i grabbed it quick as it's a link to my own past. I don't expect it will be ridden much, probably added to a bike museum and taken out each cinco de mayo for a ride to a Mexican restaurant. I'm sure it would be an easy sell to some Mexican immigrant. I had a Brazilian brand bike that I sold to a teen from Brazil. How cool was that. (Caloi, former co-sponsor the Motorola race team)

juvela

-----

Alfa is a brand belonging to Zeus

some Zeus bicycles are equipped with Alfa components
in addition to hubs there are Alfa brand brakes, chainsets, derailleurs...

Alfa badged bicycles were also produced

if you envision changing parts you might wish to consider replacing items you remove with Spanish ones

Spanish gears include the brands Alfa, Triplex & Zeus

Akront is a Spanish maker of stems, bars & rims

Arius is the best known Spanish producer of saddles; also made bearing the names Sofatti & Zeus

Heta is a maker of Spanish frame pumps


-----

kroozer 

Windsor (Mexican co.) also produced some decent mid-level components in the 70's: rims, stems, bars, saddles, maybe some other stuff. Maybe Bimex made some of their own stuff too.

juvela

-----


was there any relation between ACER_MEX and Unicamex?


-----