I've gotten my hands on a Vitus 979 frame in my size. Looking forward to building it up now ... though I'll need a 25mm seatpost.

mind sharing the final choice with us? please?

Pictures, please.

Haha, sure thing. It's a gold anodized Vitus 979, 53 cm C-T seat tube. Once built up, it'll have Dura Ace brake calipers and levers, crankset, bottom bracket, headset, derailleurs, seatpost, and shifters. Stem will be 3TTT, handlebars 3TTT Prima 220, wheels Mavic Open 4 CDs laced to Dura Ace hubs with DT Swiss bladed spokes.

It'll probably weigh 18 lbs. or so. c:

I will post them as soon as I can! The frame will need a little work. The openings for the rear brake cable routing need to be reshaped and deburred.

Expect a week or two before it's completely put together. Most of the Dura Ace is currently on a Schwinn Prelude I've tricked out.

Okay, managed to finish it. The bike's too ugly to show yet, courtesy of mismatched everything.

It weighs a neat 17.8 lbs. though. It rides gorgeously too with its tight geometry.

Way to go! I can hardly wait to see pictures.

T Mar thanks for the clarification and my bad guys for the intrusion. I was unable to set up a new thread. Thank you so much.

It's done!

Gorgeous!

Truly gorgeous! You did a super job with it! Congratulations!

Flash

very nice, indeed!

[QUOTE=vvup;16032989]Stephan Roche - battagalin

last man to win the TDF with toe clips. (1987)/QUOTE]

I'm still kicking myself for selling my Roche/Carrera Team replica. Red/white/blue fade Columbus SLX but with 7400 DuraAce as opposed to Record C. Got it for a song in early '88 from a small local shop who scored it after Interbike. They made me a hell of a deal.

I am going to go the inexpensive route and this is my vote. Clearly it is no contender against the pricey bikes but I love this bike. Centurion Ironman 'Miami Vice'.

Gios Torino Professional with Columbus SL tubing! Le meilleur-el millor-il meglio!

'87 was a very competitive year amongst many brands, both mid-level and upscale, especially steel.

Trek was running Reynolds 531 frames up and down the line. My humble 330 Elance was 23.9 lbs OEM, and I've got it at 21.2 w/light wheels, 9-sp Ultegra.
Centurion was blowing out the Tange 1 Ironman, and introducing the "new" 105 indexed series that probably hastened Suntour's demise.
Panasonic was right there with their Prestige-tubed DX, following up the awesome, earlier Team Europe and Team USA.
Nishiki had a Prestige-tubed model. Gios, Pinarello, and many others were giving the Super Corsa considerable deep-pocket competition.
Miyata was expanding it's team series. Schwinn had the SLX Paramount. There were tons of competitive, excellent frames.

After successful welding of 7000 aluminum was achieved for bike frames in '86, the writing was on the wall for steel on the mass market end.
The advances in aluminum welding really made the aluminum frame market more viable, and created margins that were acceptable.

Advances in paint techniques and materials were creating better products in many areas, not just bikes.
Add in Statistical Process Control, the mountain bike monster, and priorities changed where the decisions were made.

In my humble opininon, the components of the era were solid, fairly dependable, but not up to the frame quality.
Suntour was the king of friction, Shimano was just starting to get indexing right, and Campagnolo's Syncro, well, 'nuff said.

The legacy, though, of that era can be found March 14-16 in Charlotte, at NAHBS.

He already built it. A Vitus.

I know there's a lot of Trek hate in here but I gotta put another vote in for my '87. It's my everyday ride, just did a 21+ mph group ride yesterday with it. And as a bonus I get a question or compliment every time out

It looks good Peli. Why did you settle on the Vitus frame? Personally, I think you made a good choice as the Vitus frames were a little special 1987 and the overall weight of your bike is remarkable for an '87 vintage.

My dad bought one of these in 1987 and used it for about 20 years. I rode it for a little while, but it's too small for me and I find the ride of aluminum to be unforgiving so I mounted the frame on my wall. It, and many other 1987 Cannondales for that matter, do have some of the most garish and distinctive paint jobs I have ever seen on mass production bicycles. It's probably not the best bike of 1987 (surely there are better steel bikes to be had), but it's certainly fun and distinctive. https://www.vintagecannondale.com/year/1987/1987.pdf

3 Rensho. I wanted on of those back in the days (ans still do). Marcel Calborn's Celo Europa is one on my list, and of course another Look KG 171. Medici is another fine racing bike company that build touring bikes. So the joke goes when I had one. When I was a kid, I caught lot of crap from a couple of the cat 2 riders that dished out pain regularly. Griffin and Land Shark made a great product.

That Univega Super Strada would have been good. I liked the ride and responsive handling of my earlier Gran Rally. Don't know what kind of tubing or angles the Super Strada had.

But the Vitus looks great

I'll just go with what I already have - Dave Tesch 101 and Dave Tesch Specialized Allez Team. Both bikes in Columbus SLX.




Both with DA 7400-series. I upgraded the 101 to 9-of-10-on-8 (7402) gearing using 10-speed SIS downtube shifters.