miroslav kadlec

Titan Exlusive. Group 105.

Piotr Pe

Hi everyone,

I'm going to buy Titan frameset and rebuild bike. The idea is to restore bike on original components from 80's. The frame seams to be TITAN Exklusive in black-blue-white colors.
Collecting original parts in good condition is an issue so I would be very greatful for any information about TITAN's original bike specyfication. On steel-vintage.com you can find similar beautiful bike but in red-yellow-white paintig.

Do you think that TITAN from steel-vintage is built on original components? Is it possible that black-blue-white frame was manufactured on the same parts

Chombi1 

I'm not sure, but I thought the Swiss Titans might have been sold as framesets which dealers just build up to the customer's preferred specifications? Otherwise, the only Titan specific component I had seen so far are pantographed stems made I think by 3TTT.

Piotr Pe

This frame is with original Titan engrawed stem.
That's good news. It is up to me how to restore it. I would like to rebuild it on Shimano Golden Arrow or/and Shimano 600EX 6207 components with Weinmann brakes. I'm not sure about wheels now.

benclare

I bought a Titan in summer off gumtree, tried to post pictures of it but I have to make 10 posts first??

anyone got any tips on what to upgrade/how to make it last another 20 years

miroslav kadlec

My Titan from post 151 is original except stem and seat.

1 Lugnut

A bit of added info from the seller of a Titan Exklusiv frame I recently bought from Bicycle Classics...

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

NOS TITAN "Exclusive" / “Exklusiv” Road Bike Frame: Wild Custom Paint by Dossena Carlo, Swiss, Columbus SL Lugged Steel

This Swiss made Titan "Exclusive" /“Exklusiv” is a gorgeously fabricated 1980’s lugged steel road frame with an intricate paint job.

This is a high quality racing bicycle frame. Now who built it ?

My research shows two main possibilities -

One, as was the case with the Magni "Exclusive" / “Exklusiv” (also Swiss / Italian) LOSA

“After a conversation with Mr.Artemio Granzotto, the owner of the former ICS Company. PEP Magni was a bikeshop located in Baggio, Italy,

and owned by Peppino Magni, the former mechanic of the Italian Professional Team (Fiorenzo Magni, the great "third man ofItalian cycling," was a member of this team) -

thus the name "PEP" Magni. However, the framesets were made for Peppino Magni during the period 1975-1980

by Giovanni Losa in Vittuone. Losa is a very respected framemaker who producedbikes under his own name and for others including Cinelli.”

Two , as with other contract work at the time BILATTO

marius.suiram 

I bought the bike yesterday.
No decals, build with Shimano 105 and 600, also Universal Aer brakes and Gipiemme seat post.
As a member suggested it is a Titan bike, I will add some pictures, and see what's your opinion.

unworthy1

it's a "possible", I don't recall seeing one with that particular (and distinctive) seat lug with the "shot-in stays" before...but there were a lot of variables.
The paint MIGHT be something from Dossena Carlo, but obviously would not have been one of his more cutting-edge paint jobs.
Do the DOs match the forkends, and what size seat post?

marius.suiram 

The seat post is 27.0 mm.
I don't know what means "DOs match the forkends"?

LECHERO531

The dropouts, most of these didn't come with a fork though. The heart on the down tube lug is a plus, most of the bottom brackets were threaded in Italian threading.
You would have to check for that, mine was the purple Thron frame also with a 27 seat post. Had trouble with a standard 27.2, but shaved one down.

unworthy1

^Yes^, and could be that if this is a "Titan of Switzedland" frame that was sold without a fork it's not valid, but with a 27.0 seatpost the frame MIGHT be Thron, too (not tall enough to have used SP) and the fork seems to have a silver color Columbus decal... does that blade decal say "Cromor"?
(Note: Cromor seat tubes are generally same as SL, .06/.09. so would take a 27.2 seat post, a clue that this fork may be not-a-match to the frame, tubing-wise)

marius.suiram 

The fork is marked Cromor.

Chombi1 

Yes, a lot of Titan frames, (Especially the ones that were part of their big warehouse clearance sale from a few years ago.) were sold without forks, but IIRC, there were some in that clearance batch, albeit few, that did have forks included.
Most of them were built with Cromor tubesets.

unworthy1

thanks for confriming, again: a Cromor frame (with stock seat tube) will usually take a 27.2 seat post.
Another check to help determine if this Cromor fork (assuming the decals are legit) was original to the frame: check the dropouts for stamping (ie: Campagnolo, Gipiemme, Columbus) if you have that then check the fork ends for the same brand stamp.
This is never 100% solid confirmation but generally a builder will use the same brand for both frame (DOs) and fork (ends)

Roger M

The revival of this thread reminded me that I've been sitting on one in the basement for too long. I last rode it about five years ago, and then harvested the crankset and saddle for another project.

I got it out tonight and made it somewhat complete(missing cable ends and toe straps).
Fwiw, this has 26.6 seatpost.

It's Aelle tubing, and I am unsure of the fork. When I bought it it was complete with a 7 speed 105 group. I've since changed over to 6400 8 speed stuff, with a Topline chainset. I was always attracted to the white/hot pink spatter paint. It's a nice bike, but definitely not the higher end of Titans.

miroslav kadlec

Could you see...is this Aelle frame?

unworthy1

Can't enlarge this enough to read the decal clearly, but it's certainly a sliver background with blue border and "COLUMBUS" on top which is typical for Cromor.
See this chart that was in another BF C&V thread about tubing:
https://www.equusbicycle.com/bike/col...mbus-tubes.jpg


Note: decals from this era that had silver "wavy-lines" backgrounds and color border with "COLUMBUS" at the top other than the 3 shown in the above chart, no others had the dark blue border color.
GARA was violet
AELLE was orange
MATRIX (which was the predecessor to Cromor) did use sliver BG with dark blue border but: COLUMBUS was at the bottom and name Matrix was in RED print and a unique typeface

martl

We can conclude that Titan bikes of Switzerland really are run of the mill standard frames of Italian OEM manufacturers just like a gazillion of other made-up/Shop-Brandes frames, although sometimes with nice paint jobs?