Dake

The guys over at Rat Rod Bikes sent me your way to get some help with this ID. I'm fairly sure it's a bike-boom-era ten-speed, based on the rest of the bikes I got from the same storage unit. I already broke even on the group of bikes so I'm considering this a freebie. Any help in figuring it out is definitely appreciated.

The serial number is X33478 at 6 o'clock on the underside of the BB. The only component on the frame is the driver side bottom bracket cup which says "T.D.C Made in England". By my measurements the BB shell is about 70mm which I'm fairly sure is an Italian-only size. The rear spacing is 127mm. It has what looks like an integrated track for a cable attached to the top driver side of the BB, a guide on the right rear dropout, and some hooks for a frame-mount air pump on the down tube. The rivet holes for the head badge are vertically spaced about 60mm apart. Frame size is 54cm. It's worth noting that the huge rust is due to someone sandblasting it and letting it sit, so there are no paint/decals to go by.

unworthy1

how about a couple more pics: the drop-outs and the seat cluster?
70mm would ordinarily be an Italian shell, but pretty sure that TD Cross (that's TDC) never made any in that threading, and back in this era the shell width wasn't exactly standardized.

repechage

Looks Italian to me. The heat tube is a one pc. unit, the markings of the head tube / lug intersections are just pressed in, not separate parts.

What direction does the fixed cup remove? RH or LH threading?

Dake

Sure thing. I could be slightly off about the 70mm since I don't have a proper ruler.

randyjawa 

Based on the lug work, I would suggest low end Italian from the middle seventies. I have seen Chiorda bicycles with those lugs and even a Torpado, or two.


Sadly, you might never be able to positively identify the bicycle based on its physical features. There were just too many entry level bicycle, built in Europe, during and immediately after the Bike Boom days. And many of them were flash in the pane brands that came and went as quickly as did the Bike Boom numbers that peeked in 1972 and 1973.

dphi 

For what it's worth, all the details of your frame match that of my Falcon Majorca. Even the serial number has the same structure as mine (X26268). So that's my guess.

Dake

The only thing that would tell me it's not a Chiorda (or Falcon) is that from what I can tell they always used head tube decals as opposed to badges. Though if it's an obscure Italian brand I probably won't find many pictures to go by. Based on the following link Torpado used badges at one time, though it could still be almost anything.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/54953047@N06/page4/

It's really neat and interesting, and as long as it isn't of some extreme rarity I won't feel bad building it up into a track bike that another college kid will buy, but being able to badge it would add that extra coolness factor.

dphi 

Falcon certainly did use head badges-

https://velobase.com/ListHeadBadges.a...c-2600e372a537

zukahn1 

You may never know what the bike was originaly since nearly every Italian and few French brands used these type lugs on lesser models. Based on the quality of the build it's not worth much more than metal value. So I would say if you can build it up cheap go for it I just wouldn't invest much more than $100 in it if you want to get your money back.