coz52

About a year ago I posted a thread inquiring if anyone here had ever heard of a bike builder by the name of Schweitzer. That is the name on my bike's head badge. Also says "Sarreguemines" referring to a French town on the Saare River bordering Germany. No one had heard of it but all agreed it was a lovely bike. Shimano 600EX Arabesque groupset, Cinelli bars and stem, Stronglight Competition headset, San Marco Supercorsa saddle, 21 lbs., a nice bike. Yesterday I pulled the Rubis 979 seat post to apply a bit of grease to the tube. Whilst applying it I felt something odd, a SEAM? Sure enough, shining a light down the seat "tube" revealed it was a PIPE! As seen in the attached photos, this frame does not give the outward appearance of being comprised of pipe. Nicely filed chrome head lugs, cable guides, forged dropouts etc. I plan on keeping and using it as it rides very well and looks beautiful. I just cannot help but wonder what would possess anyone to build such a creature. A "practice" frame by an apprentice? Someone trying to prove a point? "Look what you can do with pipe"? The plus side is the bike was given to me by a friend who was having a yardsale and the bike had been donated to her.

realestvin7

Neat. Not all seamed tubing was crap, as others will also agree.

coz52

Thanks. That's good to hear.

brian3069

here's some good info. posted by T-MAR in an old thread



In the mid-1980s most tubing manufacturers came out with seamed, butted tubests to reduced costs. Reynolds had 501 and Columbus had Cromor (Aelle was seamed but plain gauge), Tange had Inifinity and Ishiwata had EXO. Most of these tubesets had wall thicknesses that were the same as, or similar to their seamless, butted tubesets.

Reynolds used manganese-molybdenum (MnMo) in their 531 sets but selected chromium-molybdenum (CrMo) for 501. Around that time, Reynolds was starting to get lost in the shuffle. Columbus had stolen many of Reynolds' customers and bicycle magazines were flouting CrMo is quality tubing. Not that MnMo was inferior, but everybody except Reynolds used CrMo for their top tubesets. It was just easier to refer to CrMo as the material of choice when it dominated the marketplace. Reynolds may have felt that they needed to use CrMo to ensure marketplace success with a new tubeset. However, their past marketing of MnMo being superior to CrMo meant that 501 would have to be a heavier and lower ranked tubeset.

There is definitely no issue with the seamed CrMO tubesets from the 1980s. However, prior to that seamed tubing did have a bad reputation which was justified. There were failures, but typically these were were inexpensive tubesets on entry level models. However, the stories of failures and the inherent logic that seamed tubes should be weaker can be hard to overcome. Much like many on this forum still believe that lugs are superior to lugless brazing or TIG welding. It may have been at one time, but by the mid-1980s Peugeot, Motobecane and several others had proven lugless brazing dependibility and by the late 1980s, ATBS had proven the reliability of TIG welding.

bobbycorno

If it rides and handles well, it's a good bike - who cares what it's made of? I'd rather have a frame built of sewer-pipe from a top builder than one of the best tubing from some hack.

SP
Bend, OR

coz52

You guys know your stuff! I was horrified when I saw that seam last night. From my uninformed perspective it was like finding Huffy stamped on the bottom bracket. It just made no sense. "How can this thing ride like it does?!?!" The Shimano date codes range from late '80 to mid '81. So I'm thinking it was likely built in '82. Being of French construction my guess would be that the tubing is 501. And that's no "pipe". Thanks again fellas.

ftwelder

There are some differences in mechanical properties between seamed tubes and fully drawn tubes but a pretty and well made bike can be great with seamed tubing. There are many examples.