Titanium Garage Find....?

Drewson

Retrobike Rider
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Popped round to see a mate today and when i was there he told me he had lots of bike parts in his shed and garage. He'd picked alot of them up from a guy who did bike repairs after he had decided to shut his business down, but the rest came from the local tip where they are salvaged and saved for him by a guy that works there....

So i took a look through the shed....nowt of interest....

But just as i thought their wouldn't be anything else worth looking at my mate says "oh yeah, take a look at the bike in the garage....i was told it was titanium when i bought it".... (PS. my mate freely admits that he doesn't know alot about old bikes but he makes a bit of cash selling skip finds on eBay and he didn't know alot about this bike, other than what he has been told by the seller...whoever he/she is...).

So we head into the garage which was full to the top with all sorts of stuff. At the back was the bike in question.... It was too dark to see in the garage so i suggested we get it into daylight to take a closer look.

Now many of the parts are very rusty on this thing, but the frame is pretty much fine....and it looks Ti. Not sure what it is though. The headset looks like XTR M900 and some of the group is M737 so i'm thinking 92/93. The forks are interesting too, but i'm not sure what they are.....bit like a manitou crown and dropouts... :? Got a nice GT hub on the front wheel.... basically this thing looks like a mish-mash of parts at the mo' :roll:

My mate tells me a guy from a local bike shop came to look at his stuff and tried to get him to part with this bike, but as my mate wasn't impressed that the guy told him it was only chrome and not worth much he didn't sell it to him.... and the best thing is he was quite happy to let me have it for nowt.... :D

Anyhoo.....it's now at home and Si (DrS) is on his way round to give me his diagnosis if he can......lets hope it doesn't turn out to be trash.....I've done the magnet test and it's certainly not Steel..... Their is no surface rust for an old bike too and the welds look v like titanium welds to me.....also need to check to see if the headset is 1" 1/4 as it looks pretty chunky...

I'm just damn curious.......i'll post some pics v soon to see if anyone can help me further.....

Drew :)
 
sounds like you could be a lucky bu66er ;) :LOL:

Should be easy to narrow down if the headset is indeed 1-1/4" as most of the early Ti stuff was 1" or 1-1/8" wasn't it? ? ? ? :oops:

Got any pics yet? :roll:
 
OK, done the initial pics....quality not great indoors though.

Think the headset will actually be 1"1/8 but need to check....seatpost i think is 27.2mm. Mechs are cable routed via mounts on either side of the bottom of the downtube. Only the rear brake has a cable mount on the toptube to the left side when sat on the bike.

Frame number on the underside of the bottom bracket is 6643.

The doctor has been on his call and decided in his wisdom that we may be looking at a Marin Team Titanium....92/93ish.....

The forks are obviously Shockworks as the name suggests....not sure what year though...

I'd be quite happy with that......to say the least.....it does need a damn good clean and strip down however...

Would be good if anyone can help confirm the diagnosis or help prove it to be otherwise....... :)

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You jammy wotsit, that is going to tidy up a right treat. Well done you.

Once cleaned down what's next on the agenda, what sort of build are you thinking of?
 
I agree it certainly looks like a Marin to me too. Cable routing, drop-outs and the rear canti bridge all point to the doctor's diagnosis.

To quote GT-Steve you are indeed a lucky bu66er.
 
the forks are made by shockworks , i can't remember what model they are tho :?

i had a set when i was 14 so 1994-ish ;) hope it's the real deal for you :D
 
All sounding good to me....think i better send my mate a nice bottle of wine or summat..... :oops: :LOL:

Will go nicely alongside the Zolatone Team Marin if i ever get it finished....

It's now stripped down bar the forks and bottom bracket (which is being a b*tch to shift and worried i'll wreck it, so might be a LBS job)

Not sure what to do with this one......i do like original builds but tempted to try somethin different.....any ideas folks?
 
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