Foz ex Battered Bitsa Batavus Professional 1984-ish

I sold a record player

I had money

I bought a frame

Heres Foz' ex battered Batavus Professional. He says Reynolds, I think Columbus. Either way, it is a very light frame and fork combination.

He was very kind to include a Shimano 600 headset. One of my bits of 600 headset was in better condition than his bit of 600 headset so out of this came a very nice 600 headset.

Other parts were from the bitsa parts bin but its Ultegra or 600 apart from the wheels.

Brakes are a set of unused Dia-Compe.

Its a bitsa because its all the parts that were badly listed or forgotten on ebay so hardly any real money was spent and despite this race to the bottom its turned out to be a very nice capable bicycle.

The downtube braze ons are for Shimano shifters and nothing else so a bit of thinking and some donated bolts from a spare set of Shimano brake levers soon had that sorted.

The saddle used to be a Raleigh but the suede was peeling and underneath the knackered sponge was a whole different saddle- a Selle Royal GT.

So there you go, built to a budget every expense spared, very little period correct if anything.

The ride? Amazing! Very fast, very nice, needs a nice sunny day to take it out.

well that turned out ok then! I had it for a few years and never got it finished, you've had it for a few days and you've finished it and ridden it firther than I ever did, which was nowhere :facepalm:

Re:

Lovely job Mark.

How to get around weird non standard braze-ons!

Give me back my bolt!!

Click to expand...

are those 4.5mm bolts then? Who'd have thought shimano would be using those only a few years ago... i was going to retap to 5mm and be done with it. needed backing plates for the DT shifters though, started making some but then ran out of time, patience, and the will to finish them.

and what model chanset is that exactly? I like the look of it with those black rings

Those braze-ons were for the straight fit of Shimano shifters without the need of any backing plates, as I'm sure you already knew.

But for those that dont, the plates from the band on versions of later shifters fit straight on, if you look at the pics, you will see why.

The back of the band on version is the same as the braze-on, they bolt straight on - with the right bolt of course!

And the originals for what is a Shimano 'B' type mount

These are from the 'golden arrow' shifters - I can honestly say I did not know of their existence until this morning!

The chainset is a 6400 with black rings

Re:

Lovely bike, fantastic colour

Like the shifter info...