Help recognizing a Minerva frame

[Dami]

Hi!

My friend acquired this old Minerva bike equipped with some quality components like XTR M900 etc. Would someone have any information on this frame? It looks very interesting with the details and weights about 1700g with the bb and headset. Don’t even know the material except that it’s either titanium or more likely aluminium, or both.

Thanks for looking!

-Turkka

 

[legrandefromage]

Nice!

A Belgian cycling brand but thats about all I could find.

 

[Dami]

It surely looks like a nice unique construction, but it seems to be very hard to find any info on it or even the brand itself. Even the usually bottomless information well of retrobike archive seems to be quite dry on those Minerva bikes.

 

[AlexLaSuerte]

Same welds as my tange prestige massi hard swing ! Very clean and neat welds! So it's steel or Ti but steel would be my guess

 

[joglo]

actually, that is the similar frame as sold by Claud Butler, Hawk and Praktiker in Germany,


The three main tubes are titanium, pressed to luggs, the rest is steel.
Some had issues, and don't stick together well any longer.

Very likely from this Taiwanese company:

 

[joglo]

ah, here, this looks already fixed with rivets