Yes, I know pictures are worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, this bike is not.

I have been lusting after the famed "Gran Turismo" for a while now. I figured it was a true touring bike and highly sought after. I just want to not only vent, but warn other forum members not to jump all over these. Do some research, unlike me...

I found a (what the seller claimed) 1982 Univega Gran Turismo in great condition. True, it's in very nice shape and it looks really nice. Unfortunately, that's the only praise I have for this thing. When I think of a touring bike, I think of a few things. Those that come to find first are a triple crank, bar-end shifters and many braze-ons. This has a triple crank and that's it. Had I seen the bike in person before I bought it, I never would have been bitten on this deal. I gave my friend the $200 cash and had him snag it for me and it was a mistake.

Here are my issues with this bike:

1) Not a SINGLE water bottle braze on. Does anyone get thirsty on a cross-country tour? I think I might.

2) Down tube shifters. Well, can't win them all.

3) Weight. This thing must weigh 30 pounds easily.

4) Fairly certain these are steel rims. They weigh 80 pounds each. In fact, they may be made out of lead or cast iron.

5) No rack mounts up by the seat. It has the eyelets at the bottom of the fork and by the dropouts only. I guess this isn't a huge issue, but you know...

6) Did I mention heavy? This is the absolute heaviest cromoly bike I've ever picked up.

So, what is this thing? Is it late 70's? I can't imagine this is built by Miyata. Seriously, I think I could live with everything except water bottle braze ons. Anyway, this will be the shortest amount of time I ever keep a bike. It's going on Craigslist tonight.

Thanks for listening,

-Collin-

Can't help with the braze-ons, but as for the wheels, you owe it to yourself to try a different set, even if they are a cheap set off of CL or off of a different bike. Heavy wheels will kill an otherwise great bike.
There are many alternatives to water bottle braze-ons. There are water bottle holders behind the saddle, one that bolts onto the bars (I used that one on a 100 mile ride) and clamp sets that are made for attaching a bottle holder to the downtube ( I must have thrown out a half-dozen of those due to rust).
I'd say give that frame a chance, it might work out for you.

Sounds like 1970s to me. I had a 1983 Gran Turismo, cantilever brakes, nice Suntour BL (blue line) components. Only one set of bottle braze-ons (ouch), but there are ways to overcome that shortcoming. It moved on to another home before I could get a better picture.

FWIW: Not every Miyata was a light weight, super high end bike. They made a pretty complete product line, from low end to pretty high end, particularly in the early 1980s and before.

funny. i bought a 1982 Gran Turismo yesterday, and it is not what you got.

roccobike has given you great advice. i swapped out the wheels, and it was probably 3 lbs lighter easily. since you want a triple, get a new crank and you'll save some more weight.

mine came with a triple originally, but some genius took off the granny ring. i have since added a different ring to have 52/40. i am really liking it.

Okay, I'll clarify a few things. I may have over-reacted...thankfully

So it's got a triple, it's got Suntour VX GT components and has center pull (non-cantilever) brakes. How are those brakes for loaded touring, by the way? I'm planning a short ride from Vancouver to Seattle in August.

As for the wheels, maybe they're just not going to be like my 1500 gram Spinergy's? Kidding, but how can I tell if they're steel? They're Araya rims. One has a Suntour hub and the other has a Suzue hub. Maybe it's the mountain bike tires that are making them extremely heavy?

I guess I just jumped the gun and figured that since it didn't have cantilevers, bottle braze-ons or bar-end shifters, it wasn't worth touring on. Bad mentality I suppose. I wonder how the frame really is. It's very heavy still, but tourers aren't feather weights. Come to think of it, I actually have a set of Suntour bar-end shifters from the 70's that would probably work just fine. Hmm...is there hope?

For what it's worth, the wheels look nearly new. The Suntour freewheel has a HUGE ratio, I think it's a 32 tooth on the low end. This thing looks like it can climb like a billy goat!

-Collin-

if it makes you feel any better, my 1984 Trek 520 Touring has only one bottle braze on, and no bar-end shifters. Two clamps wrapped in electrical tape made for a rather rapid second bottle cage mounted.

Easiest way to tell if they're steel or not is a magnet

Many older touring bike may only have one set of bottle braze ons and only one eyelet on the rear drop-outs. Your bike does not sound like a 1982. Often we seek these old bikes out for the frame only. I bought a 1984 miyata 610 of CL for $250... stripped it and powder coated it and only used the headset, crank arms and original cantilevers. I had to produce the following to make it a great touring bike:

bars, stem, BB, chainrings, chain, cassette, wheels, tires, seatpost, saddle, brake levers, bar end shifter, DT cable stop, pedals, derailleurs brake pads, bar tape... did I miss anything? A lot of the original touring bikes came with DT shifters and only one set of braze-ons... centerpulls work great and can be more than adequate for loaded touring.

Edit: Frankly, I think you'll find that you need to look for bikes this side of 1985 if you want to avoid all the no-show bits you speak of on your bike. "Touring" was quite different when taken from Europe in the early years... it tended to be light and fast... somewhere in the late 1970s North American's started doing epic self supported touring over long distances inevitably through remote areas... European's never had to deal with long distances without amenities. It looks a few decades for manufacturers to figure this out and even today the big ones often don't provide more than one bike in this category. What I am getting at is that double eyelets front and back. 2 or 3 water bottle mounts, spoke holders, mid fork braze-ons and cantilevers brakes were definitely not standard till the late 1980s and 27" wheels can be found on touring bikes till the mid 1980s.

All right, then I'll clean this thing up and stack the sucker up with all my work gear to commute on a few times.

By the way, one bottle braze-on would be fabulous; this has zero

-Collin-

Quit 'cher whinging already. Lots of great '70s bikes had no bottle braze-ons.

So does that mean $200 was okay since it's in great shape?

Found a photo taken with my cell phone:




So what I'm really wondering is, does this bike have the traditional long chain-stays that higher-end tourers do? Or, is this just a normal road bike? How long should chain-stays be for a serious touring bike?

-Collin-

to me, complaining about a C&V bike not having features that didn't commonly show up until later in bicycle history is a little difficult to understand. Production bikes in the '70s and early '80s simply didn't come with many braze-ons. Water bottle braze-ons weren't all that common, and even on high-end bikes there usually was only one. Rack bosses on the seat stays were not seen on production bikes until sometime in the '80s. Double eyelets were pretty rare even on custom touring bikes.

That is how my 73 Raleigh Gran Sport is too, no bottle bosses. I use a cool old REG bottle holder that clamps on, looks cool and I can position it anywhere I want.

Definitely longer stays than many Univega road bikes (gran premio, gran rally or a super special could not fit those tires). That frame looks beautiful to me. Sometimes you can rig a top rack mount on the brake bolt.

American Classic makes nice water bottle cages that are retained by band clamps, all the hardware hidden so quite attractive. I raced for a long time on an old concorde frame that had only one set of bottle braze-ons, the AC band clamps always worked great and looked right at home on a nice bike.

Once you have 30+ lbs of gear loaded on your touring bike, a heavy (stiff) frame is an assett. I once did a 2000 mile loaded tour an a renolyds 531 bike, it felt really whippy once loaded with gear.

If you do decide you like the frame fit and geometry, you can always have all sorts of braze-ons added to moderize it for convenience.

I had a mid/late 80's Miyata 1000, and it was no lightweight either. With 35c Vittoria Randonneur tires, Brooks saddle, and fenders... It was downright hefty. It rode really rough unloaded unless you played around with the tire pressure. By comparison the Gran Turismo
rode like a dream. Even with full tire pressure it was smooth. I actually liked it better than the high end Miyata.,,,,BD

The univega is the decked out one at the bottom.

Ok, center-pull brakes are often quite powerful, so no problems there.

Wheels: Light touring wheels are going to be at best in the 2200 g range, but generally tourists do not weight-weenie. The focus is more on smooth, reliable rolling over a wide range of roads. 36 stainless three-cross spokes, aluminum rims weighing about 500g each, 125 g tubes each, and 350 to 500 g tires each. They will NOT compare with your light roadie wheels. Besides, on an old touring lady like this you have a freewheel, not a cassette, and probably a 126 mm rear clearance. You'll not get a modern 130 cassette wheel in there without muscling the frame, or better, having it cold-set to 130 (not risky or costly, figure $40 max).

There's no reason other than aesthetics, thin pockets, or nostalgia to keep steel rims these days. Well-built wheels with aluminum rims have much better durability than any of the steel wheels I ever had back in the day, plus rather lighter. You can still get them in 27 inch if you want, look for Sun CR18s.

"Worth touring on ... " People have toured on nearly anything from light carbon with massive saddle and frame packs to fully-dressed custom tourers to vintage '60s Italian race bikes with everything stacked on top of a wobbly Pletscher carrier all shod with tubulars (this would be me back in high school!!!!). You don't need a dedicated touring bike, and you won't die without one.

Is it REALLY a touring bike? Not easy to say, that term has become extremely diluted over the years, but one can tour on it. You will need to shop carefully for racks. It's not beyond the pale to splurge for Tubus racks even on this bike. If after the tour you can't stand the bike, keep the racks, and you'll appreciate the lack of wobbliness.

Gearing: wider gearing is always better. My formerly 18 year old legs didn't care if my low gear was a 42/24 back on my Italian race tourer, but today it's way different. The 32 tooth rear cog is a great start. I don't know what your chainset has, but nearly any triple will have a granny in the 26 to 32 tooth range. That is all pretty low and should be useful.

The bigger questions about this bike are whether it's in good condition,fits you well with a saddle you're going to like, and if you can place the panniers far enough back to eliminate heel strike. If so, it can be accessorized into a really good tourer. If not, you'll never be fully happy with it.

Weight: a lot of riders who did not grow up with steel bikes start with preconceptions of bone-crushing weight. First, riding a bike that actually is heavy can still be a fine experience as long as you don't expect to climb like a Pantani. Another point is that component selection, for all bikes, has a huge effect on bike weight. Another is that not all steel is the same. There are very large differences in metallurgy, which allows tubes to be made thinner and lighter with the stronger steels. These thinner tubes will have a more lively feeling not just because the bike is lighter, but because the bike is flexing dynamically with your pedaling. In a few cases, like the Peugeot UO-8 and their later 1020 or mild steel frames (Tube allege special, Carbolite 103, and some others) Peug found ways to make the less-strong steels thinner adding flexiness and liveliness without sacrificing road durability. You can argue whether they can be jumped and abused like a Varsity, but in road use many of these old things are still in excellent working order. Finally, the lightest steel bike of the vintage days were as low as 19.5 lb while the heaviest were up to 40 or so. Cheap aluminum today can get a bike from 25 to the 30s. Of course better aluminum and especially carbon can get you down to 15 or 16, but I just wanted to set a perspective.

Sorry for this long rant, but, well, you don't have to read it all.

But the price was right - why not give it a try?

Yeah, that, too!

Yeah, I hate to say it, but you didn't do your research on this one. The Gran Turismo is really a Miyata 1000 level touring bike (ok, at least 610 level), but only in it's mid-to-late 80s years (as with most touring bikes). The features you want simply didn't exist when your bike was made. Such is the danger of biting on something without fully understanding it. I think if you moved even one (maybe two) models years into the future, you'd find most of what you're looking for.

Guys, thanks for the better perspective on this. I guess I set my expectations wrong when purchasing this bike and when it showed up, I was naturally disappointed. That, however, should have waited until I road it. I'll dig it back out of the garage today and take her out for a spin. If it fits well and can do the commute to work comfortably, I'll invest in some "stuff" for her. Racks and possibly a wheel upgrade. Maybe it's a good time to switch over to 700c if I can find a deal on some wheels. We'll see.

Can anyone tell me if this is a Miyata-built frame or not? Not that it matters, I'm just curious what this "Chromoly Steel" is. That's all it says. Maybe it's not even double-butted, not really sure. I'm curious because I've always loved to test the differences in different steels.

Thanks again,

-Collin-

I looked for almost three years before I found a vintage touring bike I could fit (need a 60cm top tube in my case), and I found one at the local thrift store one day. Mine has double eyelets, three sets of water bottle bosses, and front and rear rack mounts, but no pump peg? In the 80's touring bikes were all over the place with not a lot of braze ons, some times not enough rack mounts, and often center or side pull equipped brakes. Hell, Trek didn't put bar end shifters on the Trek 520 until the early 90's if I remember correctly.

In my case it isn't used as a touring bike as I have a Surly LHT for that. It is my commuter and some times brevet bike. I have changed everything and the only stock parts that remain are the frame and fork.

So you'd like to talk vintage tourer?



Here we're talking straight gauge SEAMED steel tubing, no bottle mounts, no cantilever brake mounts. It was upgraded with a triple cotterless crank, long arm rear dérailleur, bar end levers, alloy 27" rims, fenders and rack. It was downgraded with Weinmann centerpulls (instead of the original CLB Racers) because I wanted matching levers and hoods that were comfortable.

And I toured it for the first two years with the original steel dual cottered crank until I finally found the Stronglight.

It works. It's a 1966 bicycle upgraded to about what was state of the art in 1971. It's taken me everywhere and has pretty much killed off whatever desire I've had to build a Long Haul Trucker.

Now that's the success story I was looking for! What did you do for a front rack, if anything? With single eyelets up front, what would my options be for a front rack? I can easily make something work for the rear, but I'm a little torn on what to do about the front assuming I'm going to install fenders as well. Which fenders are those, by the way?

Thanks,

-Collin-

I'll let SkyRocker correct me if I'm wrong, but those are the Honjo Hammered Fenders (three sizes available here). Front rack problem is easily solved by Nitto band clamps - they clamp on to front fork and are, according to all reviews I've read, actually stronger than brazed on rack mounts. You can also get generic aircraft clamps for cheap here and use them instead of the Nittos (link hattip to Khatful, who I believe pointed me to that initially in some other thread...).

Yeah seriously. Lots of really nice, well made touring bikes came out of the 80s, but a relatively small number of models (and even then, pared down to specific model years in some cases) were really 100% equipped. My Pro Tour is a really magnificent touring bike by all accounts and came stock with all the really important stuff that defines a modern tourer (mid fork braze-ons, triple crank, cantilevers, eyelets). It even has a few of what I'd call deluxe features (not practically necessary but then again if we're going for 100% equipped) like internal wiring for dynamo lights and a chain hanger brazeon. But then it's also got downtube shifters, no pump peg and no bottle brazeon on the seattube. (The missing bottle brazeon is what perplexes me most, since they did include the traditional third bottle brazeon under the downtube.) Quirky.

Also, re: fenders/number of eyelets. FWIW, I've definitely seen set ups where the rack and fender shared eyelets. Just need longer screws.

Also, I don't know if I came off a little negative in my earlier post. It really is a nice bike! For $200 I think you did really well. It won't ever carry as much stuff as a Miyata 1000 (prove me wrong!), but you could do much worse and it should at the very least keep you riding until you can find that amazing late 80s touring frame you really want.