T-Mar

There is a separate C&V forum for appraisals and inquiries.. I suggest you post there with a good, overall, driveside picture and lots of detail pictures of the major components. You'll also need to state you location, as value is highly dependent on local market conditions. The only market I'm truly comfortable with is my own. While I'll offer an opinion, that's all it is. In the other forum you'll get a wider range of people looking at it and hopefully someone from your area, with a good appreciation of local conditions. That's the most relevant opinion.

I don't know how much you paid for this but if it was very cheap and the offer is low, you may want to consider removing the parts and searching out a proper sized frame to put them on. 600 Ultegra are nice components.

wasabiboi

Nishiki 1974 Competition

Serial Number KS331844
Suntour Luxe Derailleur
Shimano Hubs
Araya Wheelset
Dia Compe Levers
Dia Compe Centerpull calipers
Champion/Nishiki bars
Suntour Bar shifters
50mm SunRace? stem
Sugino Cranks
Sugino Mighty Chainrings
Suntour Gold Cassette
San Marco Contour Light Saddle

mwork1111

T-Mar,

Thanks again for all of your help and suggestion. Great forum and this thread is especially helpful.

Cheers,

Matt

Negawing

Looking at a Nishiki Olympic this Friday or Saturday. Wanted to know if you guys thought this was a reasonable deal. I emailed the guy and he said it was rust free and in good condition. He is getting the serial for me tonight. It also has a rack and a paneer bag which were both things I had planned on buying at some point. $135 looks to be a fairly reasonable price.

https://denver.craigslist.org/bik/2788221013.html

It looks like it might be a smidge dirty, but I do love the colour. What do you guys think?

T-Mar

Decal style and what appear to be SunTour AR/ARx derailleurs would put this early 1980s. Olympic 12 designation should put it to the early portion of the timeframe.

Make sure you check under the top tube pad for potential damage. The one pedal has lost a dust cap and may be toast. The stem is probably at an unsafe height, well beyond the insertion mark. I don't know the Denver market but it's probably a fair price, provided it doesn't need anything other than cleaning, as the rack and panniers probably add $25-$35.

Negawing

Sounds good! I will make sure to check those things when I go to look at it Saturday. The guy said the components were all SunTour, and I should be getting the serial at some point this evening. I will report back with it when I find out. I don't mind doing a little cleaning/degreasing as long as there are no major mechanical failings.

First bike I have ever seen with a knitted tube cover.

Update: The serial is KC 00470, which would make it the 470th US produced frame in 1983.

NJgreyhead

Some more pics of my Competition (first posts/pics on it were 1/30/11), in daylight this time.
I might call it Tall Boy.

Thanks again, T-Mar.

-NJg

mtbjeff

S/N GO683 Nishiki Mixte

[IMG] IMG_1678 by ibikergal, on Flickr[/IMG]

milmo

Just found this thread, thought I'd add a datapoint: I have a Nishiki SemiPro purchased new in 1973 at West Side Cycles in NYC. Sugino Mitey Comp crank, Suntour derailleurs (GT rear), Dia Compe brakes, Araya rims, barend shifters.

On the bottom it says "no T6148Y".

Originally a 5 speed cluster upgraded a few years to a 6. But the Suntour rear derailleur became too problematic in its shifting and the barcons have lost their friction (and can't be fixed)...so its a winter project to change over to a fixie using original wheels/hub.

milmo

Upon further examination, and cleaning, the serial number now appears to be KS16148Y (not sure about the Y). There's a W below. The Suntour GT rear derailleur has a date code OE, making it May 1972. The original Maeda Pro-Compe freewheel is 14-18-22-27-34 and date coded OE making it May 1972 as well.

I find the gearing very interesting. The chain rings are 54-48, making the available gear-inches 38-43-48-54-59-66-72-81-93-104. 10 distinct and useable gearings (including cross-chaining), requiring a double shift for each change, which was not that hard to accomplish. The only problem I had was going down from 22 to 18, it always skipped down to 14 unless I was very careful.

The bike is yellow, as I note another Semi-Pro mentioned here was. I paid $150 for it and the fitting consisted of the salesman saying "Stand over it, does it just clear your groin? Perfect!"

T-Mar

Milmo, thank-you for the contribution. I have yet to see a letter at the end of the serial number and they typically used six numbers, so I suspect the T is something else or an error.

tcarl

This gearing is typical "half-step" gearing which was quite common in the 1970's (and earlier?). It did requite frequent double shifts, but remember, back then shifters were on the down tube, so when you reached your hand down to shift, you can move both levers, and since it was friction shifting, there wasn't any resistance from the "click" - you just moved the levers. It was also easy to shift with the Bar-Cons. This gearing made sense because with wide spaced 5 speed freewheels you have big jumps between freewheel cogs and by having two closely spaced chainrings the ratios from one were "between" those of the other. The drawback was that you didn't get any really low gears. This was solved with a triple crankset, which weren't really common back then, but did exist. A typical set up on a touring bike was "half-step plus granny". Remember again, back in the 70's the only bicycle choices you had were racing bikes - Raleigh Professional, Peugeot PX10, Schwinn Paramount, etc. (all of which came with half step gearing), touring bikes, Schwinn Varsity and department store bikes - Murry, Huffy. Not much of a choice compared to today. Half step gearing worked well - I liked it, and I sort of wish one of my older bikes was still set up with it, but with 8, 9 ,10 rear cogs now, you just don't need it.

Ciufalon

I guess it is time I add this bike to the database if I haven't already (don't think I have). It is a 1974 Nishiki Professional missing decals. The serial number is KD22124. I swapped out the stem and the tubular wheels, but kept the originals, and a previous owner apparently swapped out the bar end for down tube shifters. I have bar ends and will likely go back to them at some point. This bike rides beautifullly; smooth and solid. I feel lucky to have it thanks to the help of fellow forum member noglider who facilitated it for me.

vendorz

I see the fancy W mentioned often and I asked the question several years ago myself. Can't recall now where I read the answer... but Nishiki was a contracted brand of West Coast Cycles. Look at the W logo again and I think you can see the W surrounded by two Cs. The first C is inverted.

I did just find a thread in which T-Mar also speculated the logo thing... but I know the place I first read it was not here.

tcarl

How nice. In post #787 I go into a long talk about half-step gearing, and then in post 788 Ciufalon posts a picture of a classic bike with a perfect example of it. Thanks.

milmo

I have (had) bar-end shifters on my Semi-Pro and it was easy to accomplish the double shift. In terms of gearing my problem wasn't the lack of low gears, the 48x34 combination at 38 gear-inches is exactly the same as 39x27 on a modern setup, but the high gear. The longest I had was 54x14, which is about 50x13 on a compact crank and less than 53x13 on a regular one. It was plenty on flats and gentle declines but I spun out on anything steep.

A few years ago I was able to substitute a 6 cog cluster made by Maeda that fit the original spacing, 120 mm I believe. I had to replace the original chain with a narrower 8spd for it to work. That cluster, called the "New Winner" by Maeda, had 13-15-18-21-26-30. I appreciated the closer spacing and higher gearing to some extent but the evenly spaced double shift progression was lost and with 2 overlapping gearings I ended with 10 distinct gears anyway.

I've looked at the serial # pretty closely again I think what I thought was a Y at the end is just some errant scratches, so the number seems to be KS16148.

dananan

Hey everyone I posted this on an Australian forum too but haven't got any replies yet.
I've cleaned up my dads old Nishiki Aero RC-5000 does anyone know the year of such a model? the serial number seems completely different from a lot of these other ones, but that probably because it was bought 2nd hand around 1998-9 so was probably from around then. The serial number is HUFEU-00-55

I think from the decals on the bike its a Nishiki Aero Chro-Moly RC-5000 with a Shimano groupset and on the handle bars although they're scratched i think it says "SR Sakae Ringyo" (see the photo)

Anyone know much about this bike? does it even belong on this thread or is it too new

dan.

https://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s...ishikiLogo.jpg
https://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s...ihandlebar.jpg
https://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s.../MyNishiki.jpg

T-Mar

Welcome to the forums. Unfortunately, the overall picture is from the non-drive side, making it difficult to identify the components. However, they appear to be RX100, which would put it 1994-1999. There should be date codes, consisting of two letters, on the back of most of the components, which you can decypher using the chart on the components page of the Vintage-Trek website. That should narrow down the range. While it's too new to be properly considered C&V, that won't stop us from trying to help you.

dananan

On the stem it has "CHRO-MO 22.2" then under that it has 96 C. According to the V-Trek would that make it's production around March 1996?

T-Mar

Yes, the stem would have been manufactrured in March 1996. However, I'd still try to detrermine the age of the other components. You don't know how long the stem sat in the factory, The more dates, the better the confidence in the age. Pending more info, it curently looks like it's a 1996 or 1997 model. BTW, are they RX100 components?

Over the past couple of days I've gone though my late 1990s's Canadian market buyer's guides, including both 1996 and 1997. There are no Nishik included in either. That suggests the brand was in very limited distribution and/or the distributor did not want to pay to include the bicycles in the guides. Which is curious, given that Norco was the distributor in the early 1990's and the Norco brand bicycles are included in both guides. This suggests that Norco may have divested itself of Nishiki by the period in question. Norco distributed Nishiki typically have a small (designed by) Norco decal on them. Is there anything to this effect on your bicycle?

mark.

Hi again!
I posted my Nishiki in this forum a while back where you can see all the info I know about the bike. I got a response from pitbull007 here and with catalog scans here. Thanks for those!

However, though the catalog scan for the International looks very similar to mine, it's not quite the same. Notably the decals and coloring on the seat tube.
So I'm still not sure if it's a 1976 or a 1986. Looks very much like the 1986, but the date codes on the parts seem to indicate 1976. The 1986 was all Hi-Ten tubing (according to catalog) but I'm not convinced my bike is Hi-Ten. The frame is lighter than I'd expect with Hi-Ten and the main tubes give a nice 'ring' when flicked. The stays and fork, however, give a dull 'thunk.'

Also still wondering about this "WILL" stamped on the stem.

Anyway, I've recently switched up the bike a bit to make it more of a relaxed ride. I've added photos to the Flickr set here. The last 4 photos (taken indoors) are of my current set-up. I'm now looking at putting wider rims and tires on it, with a wider 'comfort' saddle.

Kydilee

I'm so happy I found this thread! I have a new/old Norco bike, and I'm trying to find some info on it simply out of curiosity. Many of the bits and pieces have likely changed, it would be safest to say that only the frame is original. If anyone has one like this, I'd love to see images of the original bits, as I'd like to see if I could restore it to "original".

From one of the first posts, I gather that it was made pre-1975 as the serial number starts with SL. I was trying to find a model name, but I'm having no luck. Here are some images. I love this bike! This is the first time that I can pick up my bike with one hand nearly effortlessly! I've never been so excited to ride!

T-Mar

This is not a pre-1975 model. You appear to have a circa 1983-1986 Norco Avanti with some modifications. Please post the complete serial number. Hopefully that wil allow me to identify the true year and then I may be able to tell you the exact modifications, as the specs varied slightly from year to year. However, it's probably more original than you think.

tamster

I own a Nishiki Sport, serial number 4434768, purchased new in 1987. Is it made in Japan?

Bikedued

As far as I know thy were ALL made in Japan?,,,,BD