ribble 531

I'm keeping an eye on this thread, although mine cost me very little and was intended to be the bike I wouldnt be too pissed about if/when it got stolen whilst on commuter service, I must confess I have grown very fond of it.

To the point where I have sort of been looking around at shiny upgrades...
Yours seems to be higher specification in terms of groupset and also mine doesnt feature the grease nipple on the back of the headtube, perhaps just a feature of the longer headtubes?

looks like a grease nipple but actually for fitting the pump under the top tube when they had the really long pumps. Thought that this might give an indication of the age of the frame.

Nice frame not seen a Ribble in that colour before but it looks to be an early 80's frame ? Pity it has the cable clips on top of the top tube ready to rip your shorts or more important bits of the unwary.It would look nice with chromed stays and forks.
I would have thought that 8 speed SIS transmission would be quite acceptable for the period or at least 7spd

Heres my 653 baby. It was the first lightweight frame I bought and i travelled 220 miles to London to buy it. When i arrived and saw that it was flo pink I was horrified. still I couldn't drive all the way home empty handed so I bought it.
I rode it for 10 years winter and summer road and track in Audax Sportives and club runs and in all that time no-one ever mentioned I was riding a pink bike
Its been awaiting a respray for the past 4 years .

I'd be interested in any information about date of construction, frame builder etc I remember at the time that Ribble offered the frame in 653 and SL . It weighs 1.7kg without fork. Interestingly the fork is unbelievably heavy and although advertised as 653 it probably isn't . At 728 gms it is heavier than my 531 forks (652gms) and some old chrome colnago 531 forks at 691gms .

The ribble decals of this period were individulal characters applied as transfers but no laquer was applied so they tended to start peeling off after a while. A lot of owners simply peeled them off and threw them away. Can't think why the frames were never properly finished.

These frames usually have the full range of braze-ons including thu the top tube cable ,chain hanging nipple, 2x bottle cage bosses pump peg and cinelli type cast cable guides integral with the BB

Interesting! I have recently rebuilt/updated both 531c and a 653 Ribbles. The blue one is mine and I did the red one for a mate.

Putting modern bits on old bikes is not to everyone's taste, but I like both of these and they ride very nciely.

Cheers.

The 531c...





The 653...