I believe high speed wobbles on a downhill come from the weight distribution shifting forward over weighting the front end, but I've never experienced it as I was taught to shift my weight back on downhills...

I love 531 frames.

But to OP: I'd guess any 80s-90s medium priced bike from Japan, Italy, England or America would fit your needs if in good condition and reasonably maintained, or if not, if you want to do some work yourself.

get one that fits you. Google "bike fit" and you'll come up with several opinions about how to figure what size bike you should get. The Rivendell guy has a pretty good article or two on that.
Then go ride a few.

Colnago with an Ashtabula BB. Funny.

-Kurt

Do I detect a hint of skepticism Kurt ? lol

Hey that's only about $100 US. Almost worth it for a crappy BMX which says Colnago, hehehe.

do those Colnago BMXers come with a device that drops the chain when parked?

Sure. E.Colnago Patented Anti-Thug Theft Protection®



-Kurt

I have finally found the Colnago BMX bike of my dreams !

Thanks for all the replies. For a little bit more specifics.... I'm 6'0 close to 240lbs. I'm looking for a bike that would be a good platform to build from as my needs/ wants grow (or I break something. I used to bend bmx cranks quite a bit when I was younger). In addition to my rockhopper (mtb) I also have an older (98ish) trek 4300 that I thought about converting to a more road oriented bike but it has front suspension that is dying and for what I would put into that I thought I might be able to find a decent old road bike that needs a little TLC. Thanks again--ROB

You could always get a rigid fork for that 4300 and get some slicks. That would do the trick nicely.

Bingo, there are a lot of very nice candidates out there that have carbon steel frames - Peugeot UO-8 and siblings, Raleigh Grand Prix 1967 - 1973 or so, Dawes, Falcon, Mercier, Motobecane, and Gitane frames of same vintage, Italians of same vintage, such as Atala, Fiorelli, Bottechia, and many others. With these bikes make sure the bottom bracket spins well - the cottered cranks are an extra servicing challenge. Some (ask us here) can accept modern cranksets as replacements, and some can't without heroic techniques.

I'd add:
6. Stem Shifters
7. Suicide lever/death grip/turkey wing/whatever-you-call-it brake levers
8. Kick stand
9. Built-in chain guard on the chain ring
10. Ashtabula / one piece crank/BB

Anything from Chicago Schwinn is exempt from those rules.

However, I have seen some older butt-brazed (non-lugged) frames which just weren't that strong. I broke a frame like that, with pretty normal use.

Can someone tell me how to tell if it's a cottered crank or not?

x2 on the cottered cranks and if someone could post a pic of a "lugged frame" vs a "non-lugged frame".

I'm going tomorrow to look @ a garage "full of bikes". The price can't be beat.... free I'll post more info tom evening. Somehow I have a feeling all the bikes are garbage but.... I'm going to be optimistic

non-lugged

Tubes are directly connected



lugged



A "lug" is a bracket used to connect tubes

Ashtabula "one piece" crank set



modern three piece non-cottered crank



old style three piece cottered crank

I can see all those except for the first one. Why avoid 27" wheels? They are generally on older bikes, but other than that there's nothing wrong with them. Even steel wheels aren't an automatic pass for me; two of my four regular riders have steel wheels. One advantage is that they trip inductive loop signal sensors.

I can see the Ashtabula crank, but if you cut out the rest of those, you're missing out on a lot of mid-80s bike boom intermediate-level bikes. My 1984 Nsihiki Olympic 12 was a damned fine bike and it had turkey wing levers and a kick stand. I personally prefer stem shifts to, say, downtube shifters. My Oly 12 had downtubes and that was about the only aspect of the bike I never really was comfortable with.

Stay away from anything that is not going to make you want to ride it. Plain and simple. Test ride anything and you can avoid most problems.

It should be noted that what makes a cottered crank "cottered" are those two little bolts you see sticking out of the crank arm near the center.
I mention it because there are a lot of older bikes with cotterless cranks that look more like the picture of cottered cranks. The telltale sign is that the two bolts will be missing.
The one piece crank is pretty obvious.

+1. As much as I like Paramounts, I never had the opportunity to ride my '70 chrome P-13 (27" wheels, slightly larger clearances in comparison to later P-13's) before buying it. After riding it for a while, I found the ride a bit disappointing in comparison to my '61, which is a bit tighter in geometry.

-Kurt

The top of the line Raleigh Superbe was made with a mild lugged steel. Not high end but not "gaspipe" high tensile. And the ride quality becomes apparent when the bike rolls on alloy rather the stock steel wheels.

Are those Nervex lugs?

You just have to remember you don't brake with steel rims, you just slow down a bit - loudly