every time i hear that word or pass on the street a bike of this name, i'm "weminded" of michael palin's pilate commanding his guard to "stwike" some sense into our captured hero in 'life of brian.'



"centurion!"

so this is my first ... "centurion!" and my first orange bike! the color was really the key to buying it.

the cl advert pic and a few questions follow ...

no, it's not lookin' like much ... yet. but help me out with your opinions for this full refurbish and probable flip. it's gonna look great.

1. consumables color. it will get gum hoods, 1" gum paselas and either ...

- white fizik tape with grey housing
- black fizik tape with grey housing

is it true white tape sells easier? i'm not sure that's the only consideration. i've been putting black tape on bikes recently to dress them up. but i kinda fear the halloween theme here. i could even go with a fizik honey brown for $10 more than their basic colors.

2. the tubing. the decal atop the seat tube reads, "guaranteed built with ultra light tubes forks & stays." what's that mean for this bike with forged drops and an on-frame hanger?

3. frame serial. any insight into this: 'm5k03838' ? the date codes of the suntour derailleurs and sr stem are mid-late '75. that's a v-gt rear drailleur on there, another good reason to pickup this bike.

4. suntour sl reverse-pull front derailleur. is that the proper term, reverse-pull? it's a first for me. it seems to work great. looking on ebay, i'm surprised they're not more expensive. i was thinking about selling it separately and using a cyclone in my bin, but that makes little sense for a flip, even if it's a full rebuild.

i guess the bar tape is the most important thing ... and showing off my new sparkling orange bike!

"centurion!"

thanks, y'all.

the owner said it had at one time dt shifters, and that's what it will get in the rebuild.

even though ... i also picked up from him three sets of suntour barcons. woohoo!

Pics aren't working for me.

EDIT: Is this it?

^ i don't understand why it does that. i uploaded it again. maybe it will work for a while.

.
anyhoo ... for the bike, i just bought 27x1" paselas on ebay for the first time. i've been getting them from amazon/niagara. 1" in the tanwall are sometimes hard to find.

I recall these originally coming from the dealer with Suntour bar end shifters and black cloth bar tape. Sharp bike!

I don't think that the tubing used on these LeMans models was anything special; just Centurions brand of "Hi-Tensile" whatever. They rode nicely though. This looks like a 1975 model to me. Love that orange color with the chrome socks. Centurion dealers sold a ton of these, and they were bulletproof.

1975 Centurion catalog scans were just added to the forum in another thread just in the past 2 or3 days, Check it out...

Here is my 1976 Super LeMans (long gone now) which looks a whole lot like your bike.

With the exception of fenders, rack, saddle, and bottle cage, this is mostly original right down to the tires. It fit pretty well, but to be honest it was kind of a boat anchor!

Have a link?

They are on the "Centurion Model database" thread

Thanks!

For a flip...

tires look new. Keep those. New bar tape...something $5 or less. Take saddle off and eBay. New brake hoods and saddle. Service everything and replace cables, brake pads etc if they need it. Remove dork disc and replace freewheel/chain if they need it. Put some dt shifters on it as you won't get market value with stem shifters.

I owned a Super LeMans very similar to yours. I think it was a '77 or '78. I bought it as a parts bike for $65 and sold it for double that once I stripped off the parts. It had Campy crankset and rear derailluer. A very nice Suntour Sprint wheelset and Suntour barcons. All those parts and more came off and I rebuilt it with parts bin components. I never did ride it but remember it weighed around 29 pounds. I did like the orange paint though.

I think people usually say "High Normal," IOW, the FD defaults to the large chainring instead of the small chainring position when the cable is untensioned. There's one (Suntour LeTech) on the PH10LE I triplized and gave to my brother.

i was thinking hi-ten too.

no, nothing real special. i really just wanted a project and an orange bike to fix up.

cool. thanks for posting.

i kinda fear that. maybe 1" tires will help.

thanks a lot. here it is: https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...-database.html

cool bike. I posted orange as well today. Its a trend

darn. couldn't see that. i'm sure it was hilarious.


gotcha.

does he get all the crap you don't want? heh. i kid the little brothers out there...

a beauty


score

god, i'm hoping i can come in under that.

i know, i know. i went to business school too. but when building up a bike i like, my less evil side takes over, and i just can't maximize profit the way i should when i really want to build up a bike the way i would like it built if i were riding it. for example, those black 1 1/4" tires are new, but they're just too fat for me and have to go. they look gross. i'll justify the loss of profit by hopefully selling the three sets of barcons i also got with the deal.

need help with bar tape!

go black or white???

i looked through the two orange bike threads, and i still can't decide. do potential shoppers care about such things?

black housing is out though. it's gotta be grey.

Im with you on the fat tires , gotta go ! Go with the white tape , it does help sell, in my experience . I prefer the thin Fizik (2mm) tape , just think it looks better .

Lose that satellite dish on that back wheel. Pretty cool bike!