Evening all,
My First thread, so please excuse any obvious goofs, I'm a "not really a cyclist, riding to loose weight, usually wrenching on a vintage truck or tractor" sort of Noob.

I bought this off a friend for $5 as a parts source a couple weeks ago, got to looking at it and I decided to clean it up and put it back together. It's just about the right size for me.

My only clue is that both the brake bridge and the kick stand bracket are stamped "Esge made in Germany" and Pletscher.
There were no decals, just a very thick coat of blue krylon, I stripped the frame and primered it. I can get a picture of the crank and chainwheel tomorrow, it has a three piece cottered crank. other than that, there were few components left that looked like the came with the bike.






Please forgive the nasty photo's.. taken a few minutes ago in the dark basement.




the brake bridge.

Headtube





Front Brake.


Any clues would be greatly appriciated. Thanks

Aaron W.


P.S. I have no illusions as to this being anything special, I think it's probably a lower end 70's machine, but I like it and it's not real heavy. I'd be thrilled if it was English or Euro.

I just fixed my friends 3-speed, which is sitting right next to me, and it has the exact same rear brake bridge with the same writing on it. The stickers on the frame call it the "Executive" and even though the brake bridge is stamped Germany it says "Made in Austria" on the head tube sticker. Her frame has no lugs.

CristianK

I described the bike to a friend of mine who worked in a bike shop, his guess was a Puch.

I had a PUCH with that same brake bridge.

Could be. It has some similarities with this one...



https://www.fixedgeargallery.com/2004/b/kyle.htm

I like the look of it, was it just primered when you got it?

Mastershake,

It had about a quarter inch of bright blue spraypaint over everything, I took it back to bare metal and primered it up. I'm still not sure what color I'm going to paint it yet. Yellow is looking good right now!

I have the drop bars that came on it, steel, no indication of who made those either.

This should be the front dropouts.

The frame looks like any typical german or austrian lowend frame. ESGE/Pletscher is the company who made the standardized platestyle brakebridges and BB-bridges. Both plates are designed to fit Esge made rear-racks and the typical esge kickstand. The dropouts front and rear are stamped metal so rather cheap and lowend. Frame should be rather heavy, using gaspipe. Those frames were produced by the thousand by numerous european companies most likely in Germany or Austria. Obviously sold as a touring/sport bike with fenders and rack and the braze-ons for a rear dearailleur. I would date it mid 70ies to eighties. I had a Bauer bought 1982 as my first own bike which had a similiar frame. Puch and Peugeot had different dropouts. Could be KTM, Hercules (german not english) Staiger or even a low end Bianchi.

Kewl,
Appriciate the info!
One other detail, it has "72" stamped on the headtube. It also has Simplex stem shifters.

I'm rather happy that 1. It's nothing terribly rare, 2.It's Euro and not from Japan or Taiwan (Nothing against them, just not interesting), and 3. It's not worth anything.

So I'm going to build it, put some Weinman or Altenburger Centerpulls on it, and racks, then ride the heck out of it.

Anybody have suggestions for what color to paint it, and what decen't mid range parts to look for?

72 is almost certainly the head tube angle.

looks just like a sears (made by puch) 3 speed frame I had a while back.

It looks nice already, it give my poorly painted sears free spirit some hope.

Paint it blue, and pinstipe around the lugs in either white or gold. Get mswantak here to make up some custom decals (maybe a Frankenstein head for the head badge), apply them, and then shoot it a nice glossy clearcoat.

Build it with Suntour parts - cheap, reliable, and decent looking, and fit it with either down tube shifters or bar end shifters.

It'll be an inexpensive build, will look sharp, and be a sturdy, reliable ride.

What existing parts do you have that are usable?

I agree.
Consider painting the lugs black, those look really slick.
Also if you want it to be even cheaper, go to garage sales and buy up parts.

Blue, I'm not sure about, my Continential is Blue, my Columbia Roadster is blue, and I might end up with another blue Schwinn. Garage might be a little too Blue.

I like the downtube shifter Idea.

I have the alloy wheels (27 x 1 1/4) and Suntour deraileurs from a way too tall Taiwan Raleigh Olympian I stripped,(I still have the frameset if anyone can use it) I'll probably use those on the bike. I just remembered that I have a Pletscher rack I can use on the back, I'm going to try and scare one up for the front (Did they make one?)
Paint, brakes, cables and tires and I should be good to go. lol, and a couple of crank cotters.

I need a tall bike, too bad I'm half the country away.

I have a 27(I believe) inch 78 Continental frame?,,,,BD

If you need brakes, I can probably donate a pair of center-pulls. PM me if you need them. Get the Bell cable/housing kit from Walmart for $5 - it'll have everything you need to rig the brakes and shifters. Their 10 speed chain works well enough, too, and it's something like $6-7.

For tires - get these, they're cheap and good. If you're feeling slightly more spendy, spring for the Continentals, they're excellent tires for a good price.

Oh, and do yourself a favor and ditch the cottered crank and bottom bracket. Take the Raleigh ones, if you salvaged them. If not, get a set off of eBay, another donor bike, or one of us - heck, I've got an old beat up Nishiki crank set that you can have, too. Cotterless crank is "mo' betta", as my Hawaiian buddy says.

Put up a shopping list of what you need, and I'll bet between the forum members here we can come up with most of it for the price of postage.

The Redneck Rat-Rod Road Bike.........

Here is the bike mocked up on the Raleigh wheels. I am starting to like the gray, I think I am going to paint it gray over the primer and paint the lugs black.




Those are the Simplex shifters from the stem, they seem to fit fine on the down-tube, any reason they won't work there??

FD, says Suntour 7

RD,


Chrank and sprocket, I will probably use the one off the Raleigh.

This does seem to be a low buck Build, I'm up to $20

$5 for the mysterious Bavarian bike.....

$10 for the Taiwan Raleigh,

$5 for the chain

I'm not quite a charity case allmost though, back in college at 29 trying to finish the degree I started 10 years ago.

Between work, school and real life, riding, and wrenching on, a bike, is one heck of a great stress reliever.

How about leaving it primer grey and picking out the lugs in red primer?
I have lots of Dia-Compe levers and calipers, both centerpull and sidways-yours for postage.
Top
(who is glad to see someone else using the El-Cheapo cable set and chain from Wallyworld)

Here's an idea that might look sharp - a dark smoke gray or gray metallic, with white pinstriping around the lugs, white head tube, white cable housings, and white bar tape. Or maybe change the pinstriping and tape to red for added color. Just a thought. Hmmmmm..... say, I've got a frame lying around.....

I still think you should get a Frankenstein's head decal made for the head tube - something like these, only in black line art:

I've got that same exact Suntour RD.