sjcprojects
Orange 🍊 Fan
Here's another recent FB Marketplace poorly listed special. This was listed as a 'Lightweight Racer Bike' for £25. All I could really make out was the purple '6' of a 653 decal on the seat-tube. The poor thing was slowly rusting away in someone's garden so obviously I had to save it. It turned out to be a Condor – luckily Condors are pretty easy to spot due to the abundance of stamped areas on the frame.
This how I found it:
The oddest thing is that it's been rebranded with the 'Reflex' name on the down and head tube in a nasty 90s/00s font. Googling cannot come up with any answer for this, so it remains a mystery. Presumably some long-gone bike shop? Condor do have a patchy archive of old catalogues online – the closest I could find was the 1996 catalogue which has a model using 653 which looks very similar – the Squadra:
The Campagnolo Chorus spec is the same as this one, as is the frame, from what I can see – so I would guess mine is a Squadra but I'm not certain. Sadly mine has the version of Chorus with painted components (who thought that was a good idea?), so they have seen better days, with the paint badly bubbling. The shifters were also not working at all with one totally broken. I've stripped it now, except the stem is stuck so I need to sort that out before any actual build happens, but then this is long way down in the potential queue anyway.
I was surprised there are very few Condors on here, but if anyone can confirm this is a Squadra, that would be a bonus – or indeed if anyone can shed any light on the 'Reflex' name, though that seems a very long shot.
It's sad that a bike this nice has ended up in the state it did. Some day it will be resurrected, if only because I've never ridden a 653 frame and I'm curious. It would also be nice to have a full Campy build, but it'll just have to wait a while. Possibly when I retire...
This how I found it:
The oddest thing is that it's been rebranded with the 'Reflex' name on the down and head tube in a nasty 90s/00s font. Googling cannot come up with any answer for this, so it remains a mystery. Presumably some long-gone bike shop? Condor do have a patchy archive of old catalogues online – the closest I could find was the 1996 catalogue which has a model using 653 which looks very similar – the Squadra:
The Campagnolo Chorus spec is the same as this one, as is the frame, from what I can see – so I would guess mine is a Squadra but I'm not certain. Sadly mine has the version of Chorus with painted components (who thought that was a good idea?), so they have seen better days, with the paint badly bubbling. The shifters were also not working at all with one totally broken. I've stripped it now, except the stem is stuck so I need to sort that out before any actual build happens, but then this is long way down in the potential queue anyway.
I was surprised there are very few Condors on here, but if anyone can confirm this is a Squadra, that would be a bonus – or indeed if anyone can shed any light on the 'Reflex' name, though that seems a very long shot.
It's sad that a bike this nice has ended up in the state it did. Some day it will be resurrected, if only because I've never ridden a 653 frame and I'm curious. It would also be nice to have a full Campy build, but it'll just have to wait a while. Possibly when I retire...
