Dawes Imperial 1984 any good?

[PerB]

There is a Dawes Imperial 1984 up for grabs here in Norway now, it seems to be in mint original condition down to bar tape, one owner from new.
The asking price is about 400 GBP, and that what i normally pay for fully Campagnolo equiped Italian exotica,
https://www.finn.no/bap/forsale/ad.html ... =116644581
I have no clue about Dawes bicycles, other than i found the 1984 catalogue on the web, is this a collectable bike?

 

[hamster]

Nice bike, but more a sport tourer than an all-out racing machine in my view. It is the kind of practical bike that I would feel comfortable for 200km rides on, summer or (UK) winter.

Dawes always made very nice frames, but they are underappreciated and that £400 price would certainly be regarded as optimistic in the UK. I don't know the local situation in Norway.

I have a fillet-brazed Dawes tandem and it is wonderful.

 

[Nob]

225 pounds

 

[ZG862]

"Is this a collectable bike?"
Yes. (But I would say that: I'm restoring 2 of them.)
Did you buy it in the end?

"...more a sport tourer than an all-out racing machine"
Hmm. The frame geometry is pretty upright (74 parallel off the top of my head), the wheelbase quite short and the gearing high & close ratio - although I'll concede that it does have mudguard eyes on it's forged ends. At the time it was top of Dawes' range and is 531 throughout. I think the catalogue weight was under 10kg, which was pretty sporty at the time and whilst the components were not Campag, they were generally forged alloy and pretty well-matched.

"225 pounds"
As I say, I think it weighed closer to 21 pounds.

 

[DavidUK]

Re:

I have a Dawes Imperial which I restored. It's 531c tubing throughout, around 10kg for the 25'' model and can confirm it rides beautifully and is just as fast as my 531db Carlton Team bike. Even though Dawes didn't sponsor any cycling teams (to my knowledge) the Imperial was their out and out racer model.