Nothing fancy... 531 Nigel Dean

I've been a member on here for a few years but confined myself to the MTB section, having owned a few kona's and still in possession of an early ish Specialized FSR. Going back further in time, to the late 80's/early 90's, I was more interested in road bikes, and had a small framed Clive Stuart 531 in my early teens followed by use of my brothers much more beautiful Harry Hall when he discovered the fairer sex! I then found mountain bikes and had a procession of great riding Marin's, Specialized and Konas.

Anyway, a recent spur of the moment daft ebay purchase of a bike that seemed a good deal only a few miles from home now sees me bike on a road bike. Its a 90's Nigel Dean Tour Ace, built from Reynolds 531st tubing. Component wise its running mainly Shimano 600 components, along with I think deore DX cantilever brakes. The drop bars had been replaced by the previous owner with flat bars and deore shifters and brake levers. It has a comfy rolls sadle and renthal RC130 handlebars kitted out with some truly hideous barends (and that from someone who is a fan of barends). I'll be riding it as is for a bit as I acclimatise to being back on a road bike, and have signed up to a small Brittany tour with a few friends in June, so the plan is to get some miles on it while I work up a shopping list, then do a quick repaint and refurb in May ready for the trip over the channel. I'll be fitting drop bars back on I think, or maybe Midge bars as a bit of a halfway house... not 100% decided on that yet... I'm getting old and I like upright riding if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them. No major changes for the components are planned, I'm a few miles from Dartmoor and it has a hill friendly rear cassette, so I'm tempted to clean it all up and keep it as is.

Anyway, here is the steed on a couple of local rides I've snatched over the past week.

Nice bike

My advice is to ride and enjoy it

Nice, is the second pic the Salcombe/Kingsbridge estuary as you're heading on the road in and out of Kingsbridge towards East Portlemouth? Looks very familiar!

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Hi Martin, not a million miles off, it’s the Teign estuary viewed from one of the lanes above Bishopsteignton looking over towards Shaldon (I live in Teignmouth).

Be nice to have a decent pic of the bike. Then I could compliment you on it.

It looks really nice looking Nigel Dean. Midge bars would suite it but so would some more flared touring type drops like Nitto B36s etc.
Looks like your already getting some happy miles in and after all, that's what counts.

Jamie

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You say nothing fancy but I used to work in a shop that sold Nigel Deans and they were really nice bikes...

Good stuff!

Thanks for the positive comments, here are a few more pictures of it before I put on the rack and mudguards, which may come off over summer....

The spots of rust do concern me though, especially the chainstay (see pic) which thankfully after a bit of scraping isn't as bad as I feared. It does make me think I should be repainting the frame sooner rather than later though, so I'm going to bite the bullet at the end of the month and pull the bike apart for paint. I'll be doing it myself but now need to decide whether to go for something metallic and largely similar to the current paintwork or something else. I've always liked darker colours... we'll see!

Is there anywhere that might have some pictures of sales adverts of Deans?

Lovely. Gently remove surface rust. Then apply kurust or similar the remaining areas with a fine paint brush. Repeat application once dry to be sure. Then seal with a good quality car wax. You’ll end up with dark blue sound metal that won’t stand out too badly on the frame. You can paint them in if you can find a match.

Whatever you do, stabilise the rust first. Unless you’re having it prepared.


See connoisseur build below.

Great info thanks THM.