ID: Sub 2kg mid 90s steel frame - with TB P2 but not Kona?

Re: ID: 2 kg mid 90s steel frame - with TB P2 but not Kona?

i'd keep the fork black.Going to be a good looking mtb.

Re: ID: 2 kg mid 90s steel frame - with TB P2 but not Kona?

If you pop "biria" in the subject maybe some of our local Germans will pop by

Re: ID: 2 kg mid 90s steel frame - with TB P2 but not Kona?

cce":1vomxdpl said:

If you pop "biria" in the subject maybe some of our local Germans will pop by

Click to expand...

Not German but close (the Netherlands)

As I pm-ed P_ earlier:

Hi it's been a while since i've been here indeed, frame is still going strong, my frame is a biria MX 700, it does not have the reinforcements of the headtube.
Here is my gallery of it from 2005 (man I'm getting old)

http://gallery.mtbr.com/search.php?searchid=57153

When I was looking way back when I found this post:

https://www.mtb-news.de/forum/t/stahlra ... ke.117831/

Found a biria folder way back when online it is here on this polish website:

http://forum.retromtb.pl/viewtopic.php?t=5081

and this is my picture (if you have not found it allready):




Also the tange ultimate ultralight prestige tubing has a rather high pitch when tapped (with a fingernail, not a hammer not a hammer!, for gods sake.. )
My frame does have mostly the same routing of cables as well as the weird rear brake tube.
I think it is a biria mx700 or a derivative or a product from the same line.

Re: ID: 2 kg mid 90s steel frame - with TB P2 but not Kona?

Thanks, sjofels; I was not aware of your mtbr gallery photos before. Your Biria differs quite a bit from what has been my reference point so far and what we've seen here (picnicker74's Biria):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/skywalker ... 403698544/

I think I should create a new "Vintage Biria MTB" topic to the Retro MTB Chat altogether....

Re: ID: 2 kg mid 90s steel frame - with TB P2 but not Kona?

P_451":2mibkh7m said:

Thanks, sjofels; I was not aware of your mtbr gallery photos before. Your Biria differs quite a bit from what has been my reference point so far and what we've seen here (picnicker74's Biria):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/skywalker ... 403698544/

I think I should create a new "Vintage Biria MTB" topic to the Retro MTB Chat altogether....

Click to expand...

I Think picnicker74's matches it quite well actually...

Your tube ends welds/closing at the rear dropouts differ quite a bit mine are round, yours are flat.

Re: ID: 2 kg mid 90s steel frame - with TB P2 but not Kona?

Yes, indeed - sorry. I have so many windows open, and I was looking at the bratfass/sithlord/ringo/Johnboy version of it:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=164898

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=278350

Re:

Interesting thread. I bought a mystery frame a while back: http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... p;t=232089

I knew what it was made of, Tange Ultimate Ultrastrong, but not who made it.

I now think it may be a Mistral: https://www.mtb-news.de/forum/t/v-mistr ... mt.688550/, a German brand, I think, which marries up with the original owner buying it in Austria. All the braze-ons, dropouts etc. match up and the faded pink paintwork my frame had when I bought it may have originally been purple; it was purple under stickers where it had been protected from the light.

In any case, my point is this, my mystery frame had many similarities to a Marin frame I had of a similar age and even had a identical "Made in Taiwan" sticker in the exact same place at the base of the head tube. In the early 90s probably half, or more, of the bicycle brands had their Cro-Mo MTB frames made in the same factory in Taiwan, so their were many similar details across frames and brands.

Re: ID: 2 kg mid 90s steel frame - with TB P2 but not Kona?

Hi, I'm Tom, AKA picnicker74.

First of all: Funny, that this old frame draws so much interest.
Then: My frame is not a repaint. I'm sure, as there are others in the same paint out there.
Last but no least: Biria produced a significant number of bikes in Germany. BUt I know that most mid90s MTBs built from Tange were made in Taiwan. Many of them had Ritchey drop outs. This is also true for the Marins of that time i.e.. I do not know, if these specific Biria MTB-frames were actually made in Germany.

Re: ID: 2 kg mid 90s steel frame - with TB P2 but not Kona?

Just added the head tube reinforcement rings (thanks, sjofels) to the list of distinctive details of the frame (see the first post). Could this lead us somewhere else than Taiwan, e.g. Italy - they seem to have them more frequently than others...?

Re:

Nope many bikes have them.
Taiwan / Japan, nothing wrong with the builders there.