What is THIS BIKE????
 

I found this abandoned bike frame and I'm fixing it up. Can anyone IDENTIFY the manufacture/year???

The front is ALUMINUM-- it is bonded to STEEL rear geometry. Yes, indeed.

(I've painted the steel portion with Hammerite paint.) The bottom bracket appears original, sealed.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=342797http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=342798http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=342799http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=342800

Thanks
Neil

There is something very Raleigh Technium-ish about it, particularly the annulus at the bonded end of the aluminum tube, but also the wishbone seat stays. Although the rear brake cable stop seems more ornate than I remember, and the TIG'd front end is unusual, if I were to put a small bet in, it'd be that it's a Raleigh.

The general construction of alu/steel mix was quite popular in MTB for awhile, though, so there are several other options, but I seem to recall most were bolted on subframes at the higher end of the market (e.g. Mantis, Nishiki Alien, Fisher CR7), and that Raleigh really had the bonded thing as their trademark construction technique.

Oh well. I just did a Google image search for Raleigh Technium in various ways and couldn't see a single example of composite frame with TIG welded front end, so maybe scratch Raleigh.

This may be a job for the www.retrobike.co.uk MTB forum.

CLose. But not quite a Technium..

Okay fellas it's been SOLVED. It is a Raleigh MT500 from 1994, only one year of manufacture.
See details here:

http://www.bikepedia.com/quickbike/B...0#.UkZR8Vfdd8G

Photos are online- originally painted quite, uh.... 80-90's goofy.

$1042 new? That was a lot of money in 1994.

You might not have been exactly right, but that sure was a good guess!

haha he said annulus

I'm not a big fan of this style of bike but that's a nice frame to found abandoned!

Reminds me of the Omega watch my mother found years ago at the local running/jogging track. We advertised and tried to find the owner. I put it in a box and forgot about it until recently when I cleaned the 'junk' drawer out. Thing's worth between $1,000 to $3,500.

Lucky find.

10-4