"92 Condor 653 .

  • Thread starter Deleted member 69416
  • Start date
D

Deleted member 69416

A few people have shown interest in this bike so although I wouldn't call this a build thread , er , here's a thread about it .
I wanted something cheap , cheerful and comfortable to muck about on with my kids in our local woods and park . I need a short tt and fairly high bars to be comfortable . @scant had this and it was too lovely to pass up . Thanks sir .
Unfortunately the tt is still 22" which accounts for the ungainly Nitto stem . I thought this would be one of the only things I'd have to buy to get it going but , not so !
When it arrived {terrible pic , sorry}
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There was the tinkle of rustiness in the tt which needed sorting first . I drilled a 3 or 4 mm hole in the end of the tt and fished out what I could with a magnet and wd40 .
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I then treated it as instructed by @novocaine & @Guinessisgoodforyou . Thanks gents.
Wheels were the only other thing I knew I'd need from the outset so , I found a set of Mavic 231 on Deore lx .
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It turns out that the TA bb was no good , even as a double the crank was pinging the chainstay when I started putting some weight into it . In the end I got a 122mm UN55 and shorter crank arms , which fit me better anyway . Down from 175 to 167.5 .
P1050889.JPG Campag Olympus {I think} brakes , MKS pedals and an XC Pro that came to me on , of all things , an '83 Holdsworth Pro !?!
SS7 levers , a Suntour ratchet thumbie and 1.75 Passelas .
I lashed out on new sram chain and cassette too . The Ritchey classic and Flite cheap jumbo max walk or whatever it is were not necessary but need for something else or this , if you know what I mean . Wasn't sure which bits would end up where , if it'd been just for this I wouldn't have bothered .
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Thought it'd be lazier and consequently better with an inner so .... P1060210.JPG
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Finding a 28.6 xc pro took longer than I thought it would but got one in the end .
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Although it's an undeniably nice frame I do think that the fileting is not as nice as Winstons , but that's immaculate so....
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Do you know where these were built? I think nowadays Condors are made in Italy.
By the looks of it , reading the Condor back catalog for 1990 , which has what appears to be the same frame in , in the UK .
 
The blend of filet brazing with lugged bb shell is pretty amazing. I don't recall many frames having this combo.

Also it's got Reynolds 653 tubing which is supposed to be a very good tubeset.

The rest is as cool as it looked from the picture in the Graffiti thread...

Thanks for sharing...
 
The blend of filet brazing with lugged bb shell is pretty amazing. I don't recall many frames having this combo.

Also it's got Reynolds 653 tubing which is supposed to be a very good tubeset.

The rest is as cool as it looked from the picture in the Graffiti thread...

Thanks for sharing...
Thanks man :) Glad you like it .
 
That's lovely. Weren't Condor bikes of this era built by Roberts? Along with some of the Pearson framesets too?

Love the combo of TA chainset, Olympus brakes, XC Pro rear derailleur and friction thumbies! Just the ticket for just riding around with the family! 😍

653 is lovely to ride. Had an old Brian Rouke 653 roadie frame that sadly broke - got it second hand and must have already had some form of corrosion (via internal brake routing). This was followed by an undetected crack followed by catastrophic failure with both top and down tubes folding in half and dumping me into the road at Wimbledon Common on the way to work one morning. Followed by a long walk home in socks to collect a different bike to cycle to work on! 🤣
 
That's lovely. Weren't Condor bikes of this era built by Roberts? Along with some of the Pearson framesets too?

Love the combo of TA chainset, Olympus brakes, XC Pro rear derailleur and friction thumbies! Just the ticket for just riding around with the family! 😍

653 is lovely to ride. Had an old Brian Rouke 653 roadie frame that sadly broke - got it second hand and must have already had some form of corrosion (via internal brake routing). This was followed by an undetected crack followed by catastrophic failure with both top and down tubes folding in half and dumping me into the road at Wimbledon Common on the way to work one morning. Followed by a long walk home in socks to collect a different bike to cycle to work on! 🤣
Freaky ! My Rourke 653 road bike is coming back to me later this month . I had 2 , one in 531c and the 653 one , I preferred the 531c and gave the other to my sister . She's started getting serious about triathlon so now she's got the 531c ......
Don't know who made them , but it sleeps with one !;)
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