New find, 1979 Trek 730

drpaddle

Dirt Disciple
Hi, folks - I just picked up a 1979 Trek 730 on a whim. Frame #I4D9099. I'd appreciate your comments.

Many or most of these were sold as framesets -- I sold some of them from a shop in San Diego, California. Frames and forks are 531 DB with Campagnolo frametips. The frame is straight and in good condition, though the seat-tube decal is damaged (what idiot puts a huge sticker on a seat tube where shop stands will damage it?). These bikes were never fine art, of course, but they rode well and were soundly made.

The equipment is a mix. Possibly of the correct period are the cranks (stamped AD, which should mean April 1976), the brakes, and the seatpost ("pin"). Somebody converted this to a 7-spd cluster (without bending the stays to accomodate, fortunately), and the rear mech is a new replacement. Front hub is Shimano 600 (I think), but the rear is a Maillard -- consistent with the conversion to 7-spd. Shift levers are Campy.

Thanks, folks!
 

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Hey, Old Ned - According to vintage-trek.com, Trek started making frames in 1976. I got my first one in 1978, when they were just trying to expand into the US West. The Trek sales rep offered bike shop employees very special pricing on framesets, figuring that we would sell what we rode. I got a touring geometry frame in Columbus tubing (they had run out of Reynolds tubesets), with extra braze-ons for bottles on top of and under the downtube and for rack mounts. They custom painted it for me in orange. I outfitted it in Nuovo Record, with a Campi triple chainring from a Schwinn Paramount tandem. I never liked the way the bike rode, though, as it always shimmied when loaded with touring gear. I got rid of it in a few months.

In those early days, they also had a problem with manufacturing their forks. They started with straight fork blades brazed to the crown and head tube. Then, they put the assembly in a jig and curved both blades at the same time. On my bike, that yielded blades that lined up OK at the tips, but the blade tubes had noticably different bends along their lengths. Very weird. By 1979, though, those problems were all cleared up.

Trek never had interesting paint jobs. At least in the early days, they sprayed the frames in a single color of Dupont Imron automotive paint. Functional, indeed, but not artful.

I visited the Trek factory in Waterloo Wisconsin in about 1979 since I was in the area on other business (the Chicago Bicycle Dealers Association tradeshow, I think). It was still a small operation next door to a pickle factory in that small farming town.
 
Cool bike, I'm a fan of these old Treks. Unfortunately there's next to none of them in the UK.
 
Well, I'm unlikely to fix this one up. With my limited time, I'll wait to find something less common and more interesting. Should I ship this one to the UK?
 
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