The same Reus posted years ago and now owned by me. Got it as a frameset and built it back up with a Shimano 600 Tricolor setup I had and some modern Fulcrum Racing 3 wheels.

After the build:



And out on the road:

That Citroen is cool. At first glance I thought it was a Jensen Interceptor.

Speaking of rare brands, at least on this forum, here's one I acquired recently: a Visser Vainqueur.

It was the house brand of Teun Visser, who owned one of the bike shops in the Rotterdam area that catered to the local racing crowd. Visser even sponsored a small Cat 1 team in 1970, the "KRO Brandpunt Buitenspel Visser Vainqueur" team:



He did not build his own frames, but chose to outsource the frame building to reputable builders like Jacobus de Jong (the enigmatic "Witte Ko", who I'm told would rather go fishing than invest in his name as a frame builder) or buy them through Wout Verhoeven, who'd have them made in Belgium.

In this case the evidence points to Belgium, specifically to the shop that was started by Arthur Maertens shortly after the Great War. Arthur had been a talented racer (5th in the 1913 Tour of Flanders), who'd seen his career cut short by the war. He changed his name to Martens at some point in time, and after WWII his son Maurits took over the shop. They mostly built frames for others to put their names on. Both for the trade and for sponsors that needed high end machines for their pros. Michel Pollentier and Jempi Monseré, among others, have raced Martens-built frames.

The evidence constitutes of a panto'ed "D" in the lower head lug, which leads me to believe that this frame was originally built for Diamant, a Belgian brand, and also a known Martens customer:



How it got to Visser's shop I don't know, but given the pragmatism the Rotterdammers are known for, it's not very surprising either. Someone needed a decent bike and was in a hurry, would be my guess.

Anyway, here's the bike as I've just rebuilt it for Eroica Limburg, hence the 28mm Paselas. I need to make more miles on it for a more definite verdict, but so far I've found the 531 frame to be very responsive as well as very comfortable. So much so, that I spent the first ten kilometers of the Eroica ride worrying that I'd somehow misread the pressure gauge on my track pump and didn't have enough air in my rear tire.

Classy looks on that Visser Vainqueur!

Thank you. The goal was to build it period- and area-correct for ~1970 and be able to use it at hilly and gravelly Eroica rides. This was the result. I'll admit to liking the somewhat restrained looks myself, too. The dark green and modest decals work well, IMO.

Yeah, what are the odds that the only two that there are pictures of on the Internet (that I've been able to find) are the same color and same size?

Interesting, while both cars are Ford Cortina Mk2s, the original Holdsworth team car was the 1600E version of the Cortina, the L'Eroica one is not the same car ! Obscure English framebuilders ? Two I have examples of - Allin, Ken Bird, Bill Philbrook.
John.

This is my orange Heck Colney. French made by a mécanicien who worked for one of the Tour de France teams. Super Vitus frame.


She rides very, very elegantly.

And this is the baby-blue Marcel Kint I am working on right now (see other thread on this forum). It's Belgian made. Quite well, I must say.

Any Eastern European Warsaw pact era brands .. seen , these days?

So many cool bikes posted to this thread already, a lot of stuff I've never seen.

Since I bought both examples of this French marque that I ever came across, I'll assume it's a both rare and obscure one.

The "normal"-looking one is actually brazed from carbon-lined steel tubing having .2mm-walled center sections, and has triathlon geometry. I added the longer stem so as to fit myself to it.

The Aero bike is quite forward-thinking for it's early-80's birth date, crafted of very thin steel sheet, even the "fender" structure is a closed-section (hollow) bronze-weldment. And the chainrings are wildly oval, working approximately 90-degrees out of phase compared to the BioPace orientation.

Behold the creations of Edmund Polchlopek:

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[MENTION=173992]non-fixie[/MENTION] -

that looks like quite a narrow gauge/light duty rail line there below the bridge.

what be its application?


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Yes indeed!

Thank you for posting Lucas.

And bonus points for the Rampinelli 341's.

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my pleasure!

The Bauer is probably Steve Bauer, Olympic medalist for Canada and wore the yellow jersey at the Tour for a few days. I think he either built frames for a while or licensed his name.

Just noticed you're local to me -- speaking of Canadian cycling greats, maybe I'll run into you on my Jocelyn Lovell-built bike one of these days. I've got a modern Campy Veloce 10-speed group on there right now (sacrilege I know but I'd rather ride it than look at it) and the thing is an absolute blast to ride. I need to clean it up and get some good pics for this thread one of these days.

That is a rather famous track, unofficially called the "Million Guilder Line", as its construction had cost a million guilders per kilometer in 1925. It was built to transport coal from the South Limburg mines. After the mines were closed in the seventies, parts of the line closed and the remnants are mainly a tourist attraction these days.

Joris Ivens made a film about the construction in 1925:

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Danke Mein Herr Baron!

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Mine has some paint scrapes and surface rust, so I was thinking about getting it powdercoated.. making yours the last of a breed!

I wouldn't, I'd neutralize the rust and clear coat it to preserve it as is. I don't think they have a lot of collector value, rare doesn't necessarily equate to valuable, but how cool is it to have something so obscure? They are still decent bikes regardless of monetary value and even with the scrapes and scratches you have something pretty unique. I think you'd end up regretting it, they're only original once. Leaving in about a half hour to pick mine up! We can start our own club, the "Focus SG-300 Owners of America", "Tall Man Chapter".

Posted back in 2012; never corrected. The allusion to habanero, or red pepper, may be why the head badge . . . uh . . . shows a radish.

Here's a better view of the head badge design:

And here is what Google Translate makes of the Italian word ravanello.

In Japanese, ravanello is daikon. Nerima, which is where Ravanello bikes are made, is known for its daikon. If you want a Ravanello bike and, like me, are amused by the sly inverse snobbery, you can opt for this head badge; if you aren't, there's at least one alternative design of head badge available (with a capital "R").

Another great Japanese head badge is that for Kalavinka.

Incidentally, the Japanese pronunciation of habanero is very close to the English pronunciation of habanero. ("Ha, ba, ne, ro": Japanese speakers have no trouble with any one of these four syllables. And unlike monoglot anglophones, they wouldn't turn word final "o" into a diphthong.)

I bought this Di Bartolomei because it was well-made, Italian and obscure:



It was made by this man:


... in this little shop in the middle of Rome:


One day I'll build it into a bike, take it to Italy and visit the Di Bartolomei shop.

Hello reelsteel: I can only say that I was startled when I saw the pictures of your Di Bartolomei. Every detail appears to be the same as my "SIMPLON 4 Star”, even down to the paint design. The chromium tubes are the same, as well as the lugs and their windows, ferrel guides — the lot! I see the forks are Columbus, so should I assume the rest of the frame is too? (My triangle is badged as Reynolds 531.) I had fotos of my bike on this forum, but they have dinosaured, and AFAIK no longer appear. I will update with new ones soon, and we can compare.

For reasons I will forgo here, I have always thought that Simplon contracted someone to build my frame. And I thought I had a pretty good guess in regards to a larger Italian maker that used to produce frames for some very good marques when their orders were piling up. I'll have to dig back in my stuff to see the name —I forget. It was not the charming little shop you show here.

Of the three bikes I am currently riding, the Simplon is my most favourite ride. In 2010 I bought it in auction, and it was shipped from Budapest to Japan where I live. I built it as single-speed on tubs. The frame is asymmetrical: 56x54. It fits me perfectly.

I've been away from Bike Forums for awhile; I'll be back soon with some pics.