birdie92k

Picked up this fella yesterday and figured I'd share with people who would appreciate it. Heck I'd say a lot of folks here probably appreciate it more than I do since I'm so far a more modern aluminum type. *Don't hurt me*

So I don't know if these were the original components that were with this bike from the beginning but they match and that's a good thing.

So its an Apollo Club Sport made by Kuwahara still sporting the decals in good shape. As the pics show, it's fitted with Shimano 600 group throughout.

I got this bike from a local store since here in Toronto these days, even private sellers with any old bike lays on the vintage tag and over charges. So I got this as a trade in for my GT Aggressor 3.0 MTB which I had paid $190 for and $100 on top, so total of $290. He originally wanted my GT + $250!!! No way I was that desperate. I'd be really interested to get some thoughts on this purchase and the bike which from my knowledge and research was a top notch mid 1980s model.


Plans for the bike would be to switch the bottom bracket and crank components, wheels, tires, seat post and seat for some lighter pieces and avoid too much wear on the original pieces. Would be nice to get a complete newer 105 set and preserve this 600 set. Change the tape and change the shifters to shimano STI shifters or similar (remember, I'm a modern type in some ways). My objective for this bike is to be able to do some training/ride for fun to about 60km tops. It definitely seems to have great potential from my car tuning mentality perspective.

Onto the pics...





Hope you guys/gals enjoyed it.

Kilgour Trout

Hey Birdie :-) How are you enjoying it? Is it the Tange 900 DB frame? I'm interested in the ride quality as I just picked up an identical Club Sport in blue but the frame has a lot of rust and I'm not sure if it can be saved. It really feels really light for the Tange 900. Part of me would like to do a full resto on it but "Boy" are Apollo decals hard to find! Anyone have a source for Apollo decals?
Fill us in on your experience :-)

Hummer

Hi birdie92k,

I am not sure where in the Apollo line up this bike places. Do you have a picture of the tubing decal and serial number. The serial number is usually on the seat tube, lower non-drive side. That will help to be able to place the model.

The frame looks similar to the Prestige model. The Prestige model was usually Suntour components. As time progressed the Prestige model went from HiTen to Plain Gauge CrMo to butted CrMo.

uncle uncle

I can't tell you how many awesome deals I've gotten using the following words "nice bike but I think your price is a little high, consider that original seat post looks all worn out there..." I can't tell you, because I've never seen a bike with a worn out seat post. I have bikes with vintage Shimano 600 stuff, and it's nice and all, but I kind of think it may be just about as ubiquitous as anything else. Plus, the rear derailleur looks, well, pretty "patina'ed" already. Looks like a great bike and a sleeper in the non-offensive gray. What's Tange 900? Where's that sit in the Tange tube family?

DIMcyclist

Of course! Don't sweat it, dude- a nice bike is a nice bike! With a little cleaning up, it looks like it should be a fun ride.

Also, Japanese production bikes from the 'boom' days have been a frequent topic of late; several threads have been started that might interest you.

And fwiw, I don't mind Aluminum; alu. is great... inside the velodrome.

Btw, Uncle uncle, Tange 900 was a decent-quality double-butted road tubing, similar to Tange #4 (for touring); rated a few steps below Prestige; good stuff, but nothing maybe to write home about.

Bryanthebutcher

I still have mine that I bought new in 1986. Looks like all the same parts that are still on mine. Only parts I’ve switched out were the seat , pedals and new tires. Still ride it today. Hard to part with it. It’s like a vintage car. Hope all works out for you.

rgvg

I was under the impression Tange 900 is seamed tubing very much like Tange Infinity. Only difference in the description is "tapered" for Infinity.

randyjawa 

One Apollo Club Sport has come my way, over the years. I found the bike to be nice looking and it offered a decent ride quality. That said, I did come across one more, at the dump and built it up as a single speed. It was a great around town ride, in my opinion. Sorry, I no longer have pictures of either bike. I do however, have this picture of another Apollo Club Sport that I came "this close" to buying, at a yard sale, one day for $125.00 CND. Lucky for me, I spotted the eyelets on the drops, which, for me, presented red flags. Turned out that this apparent Cyclops was really a repainted Apollo Club Sport, not something that I was really after by that time...


Based on what is shown in the picture and based also on my old memory, the components fitted are pretty much original. Hope this is helpful.