Campania Dumpster Find
 

I cannot find out much about this one other than it was a so-so brand in the early '70's. HOWEVER, there are some things about this bike which I have never seen before. Look at the headset and tubing. Van Nuyes California? Anyone ever heard of this stuff? The tubes are DB chrome under the paint. I cannot make out what is left of the tube sticker (Hanover??) which also says Van Nuyes, CA. I cannot make out the model name on the top tube. Pictures below.

Specs as found (and apparently original):

Suntour bar-ends and drivetrain with late '74 date codes
Dura Ace hubs laced to Weinmann Super Champion 27" rims
SR Royal Cranks, BB and Stem
SR Randoneer bars
'Campania' Centerpull brakes (I am assuming Shimano or Dia Comp)

Headset:
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q...d/P1030120.jpg

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q...d/P1030121.jpg

Tube Sticker:

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q...d/P1030122.jpg

Model??:

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q...d/P1030124.jpg

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q...d/P1030119.jpg

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q...d/P1030123.jpg

Some info here:
http://search.bikelist.org/getmsg.as...10802.1390.eml
http://search.bikelist.org/getmsg.as...10010.0354.eml

I saw a few Campanias in Los Angeles in the early 1970s. Your frame has steeper angles than my 1971 Nishiki did, but if the early Japanese double-butted CrMo tubing is similar, your frame is probably somewhat heavy and mushy. The Fuji theory is plausible, but they also could have been made by Kawamura or Matsu****a/Panasonic.

Before I retired, a co-worker in Olympia, WA (he was a daily bicycle commuter & a member of the Seattle Randonneurs), had a Campania frameset that he built into a fixed gear/single speed. It was a good looking frame with chromed lugs. Don

Presuming the frame was made by Panasonic/Fuji/Myiata/whoever in Japan, who was making chrome butted bicycle tubes in 1974??

McIver is the company that bigbossman used to work at when he was a youngin.

Here's a thread he posted about it. He thought they were going out badged with the company name, but obviously (at least) Campania branded bikes left that plant.

Hmmm, there's a completed ebay auction (#220232414752) for a Campania ($280+S&H) hi-tensile beast fixie :thumb:. It looks like the braze-ons are still intact, but that didn't stop plenty of imbeciles from lining up to buy that thing.

Looking at the info from that auction I don't think it would be Hanover on the tubing sticker, but "H. McIver".

Yours is CroMo at least.

I have a Campania frameset in my basement that's likely one of those hi-ten beasts (though it's that same yellow as the OP's). I tried to sell it at a local swap for $10 but didn't get any takers. It has a chrome fork, which could be useful for other projects, but if I want to build it up for resale, it'll need stripping and painting. Another summer project.

Neal

Yup - worked there 2 whole weeks before quitting to go beach combing during my 16th summer. Can't remember too much, except the boss was an ass-hat and all the management came straight from Japan. Most of my scout troop worked there at one time or another, and nobody much cared for the slave-like assembly line conditions. I was indeed in Van Nuys, CA - on Van Owen Street, I think. All the bikes I saw were low-end, with cottered cranks, stem shifters, and thin black vinyl tape.

I also remember a kid named George Costello, whose job it was to inflate the tires before the last kid on the line boxed the bike up for palleting, warehouse storage, and eventual delivery. It seems the boss pissed off George one day, and to pay him back George inflated all the tires he touched that day to about 160psi or so. For the next few days, we were treated to muffled >booms< out in the warehouse as tires/tubes gave way somewhere in the huge inventory of bikes. They were stacked high and deep, and it was impossible to pinpoint the ones that were letting go. :lol:

But we did rake in a whopping $1.78/hr, so it wasn't all bad. :rolleyes:

Your Campania looks like the Centurion posted by Bigwoo: http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=481347. I like the lugs.

And that's the frame I ended up using for the velo cheapo build-off.

Neal

That's funny. I could easily see a kid doing that.

We've got to get bigbossman one of these frames so he can put a 10 speed Campy Ergo group on it. :D

all this reminds me of another trip down memory alley: I also worked at a SFV (that's "the Valley" for you outlanders) sweatshop bike assembly operation back in the dark ages of the '70s and also lasted only about 2 weeks. But my stint was for an assembly line of Sentinel bikes set up in a strip mall in Chatsworth (on the other side of the Valley from VanNuys) and we youngsters were doing pretty much the same thing: putting together bikes shipped in from Japan. Funny that McIver was doing it over in VanNuys at the same time, the bike boom was quite a gold rush for "entrepreneurs" who had the means to get product and hire the cheap and clueless youth labor thereabouts. I think I made even less than $1.78, maybe more like $1.25/hr., but it's all a haze...I gather that Sentinel also did some actual bicycle manufacturing, but none that I ever saw during those 2 weeks in Chatsworth.

Wow! What great stories about the secret bike sweatshops of the San Fernando Valley. Hopefully Lawee treated their workers better a decade later in Long Beach ...