Condor Heritage - when built?

[cricklewood_graeme]

I saw a nice Condor Heritage bike with a 64cm Reynolds 631 frame for sale on Gumtree London today and was wondering if anyone knows when Condor built these? Condor's current frames badged as Condor Heritage are Italian made Dedacciai triple butted jobs and look nothing like the older Reynolds frames which I suspect were made here in their London workshop. (https://www.gumtree.com/p/bicycles/cond ... 1291282643)

[gaz]

631 was introduced for OEM use in 1997.

Impossible to tell what parts might be original kit. Front mech FD-M732 is older than that, 89/90. To me the cantis look early 90's, LX rear mech looks around a '99 model. Somebody might suggest a date for the Mavic rims based on the design of the sticker (M3CD?).

[Norman H]

It's described as dating from the 70's but as Gaz points out 631 wasn't introduced until the late 90's. Also I think the £1000 asking price is a bit optimistic by several hundred pounds.

[rmurphy195]

Haven't seen the ad but if it is £1000 I'd be tempted to buy a new Heritage frameset and fit my old bits into that.

[cricklewood_graeme]

You are on the right track Murphy. I have met the guy trying to sell it and he hasn't a clue. If you search www.bikeshd.co.uk for the word "condor" you will see that he has advertised it several times on Gumtree for amounts as low as £399 and since I visited him and pointed out that his advert was a cut and paste from the latest Condor Heritage model, he has steadily INCREASED the price rather than lowering it. Baffling.

[willswitchengage]

Well, guess who bought this bike?

I've had it for a month now and have been wonderfully puzzled by it since, so much so that I have now joined this forum to hopefully continue this discussion.

The seatpost of my Dawes Galaxy recently snapped after being stuck in the frame for many years. Being my winter bike, the frame was generally rust by this time and the BB was stuck so I decided it was scrapyard time. The groupset was so shot it had been a bizarre 1*10 shitmix for some time. It was time for something new. My daily 'everything bike' was a Cannondale T800 and after my Litespeed was stolen (and later recovered in an act of ebay vigilantism) I decided I really needed a new pub/winter bike that is less attractive to thieves. Many weeks of ebay hunting later this turned up.

I bought it in September from some random Shoreditch hipster who is presumably not the person originally selling it in the advert linked to this thread. The ad is here:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Condor-Touri ... 2749.l2649

80s, lol. I did plenty of Googling beforehand but found no information whatsoever about the bike itself. I found that original Gumtree advert. Google the seller's phone number and he has all manner of crap for sale. The fact that it is mainly other bicycles and moped parts suggests to me that this may have at some point been stolen. But I couldn't find any missing bike pleas - given how few Condor Heritages there are out there - so have taken the gamble.

The bike is generally pristine, although the 631 decal has worn a little. Doesn't look like it has ever seen riding outisde of summer. The rims though are heavily worn though so are going straight in the bin, suggesting if they're original they have at least been used. I've added some stainless mudguards from when I volunteered for Reading Bicycle Kitchen but otherwise left it as it. It's beautiful.

The groupset is pukka, for its day.

3T Competizione handlebars. Says cool stuff like ANTI VIBRATION on them.
3T stem + seatpost.
105 Brake levers + 7 speed bar ends.
Tange-Seiki headset.
M730 brakes.
M730/M732 Deore XT hubs.
mavic Module 3OD rims (for some reason an M+ is slightly too big to fit on the rear).
Deore LX M570 rear mech 'Mega 9'.
Deore XT front mech.
Suntour XC-pro crankset w/ Sugino rings.
San Marco Concor saddle.

The seatstays have condor stamped in them. A random forum suggested that Condor frames were actually made in Taiwan or Italy, but I have no idea. I can only assume this was a bespoke build for a customer before they began dishing out off the shelf bikes. If anybody could shed some light on either its probably age or origin I'd be glad to hear!

[Cyril Haearn]

Like to see some pictures please

[willswitchengage]

Click on the eBay link - that's it.

(too dark in the evenings to get a decent photo of it at my place)

[Gattonero]

... A random forum suggested that Condor frames were actually made in Taiwan or Italy ..

That is a very random forum, it looks to me one of those that were contracted by Dave Yates, so it's not exactly Taiwan

Btw, you may want to contact Yates to repair that nasty dent on the top tube

[peetee]

I agree about the top tube dent. It looks severe enough to compromise the frame.
IIRC, Condor frames were made in Condors workshops, predominantly then increasingly contracted out to top end builders in the UK. Then in the 90s, or later, they redesigned their range, moving away from Reynolds steel and sourcing foreign builders/suppliers.

[Brucey]

yes that is pretty nasty. Worrying (because the dent is close to a braze-on, with unknown steel properties in the HAZ of the braze) and difficult to roll out (again because the location of the braze on).

cheers

[Gattonero]

I agree about the top tube dent. It looks severe enough to compromise the frame.
IIRC, Condor frames were made in Condors workshops, predominantly then increasingly contracted out to top end builders in the UK. Then in the 90s, or later, they redesigned their range, moving away from Reynolds steel and sourcing foreign builders/suppliers.

To my knowledge they only had "their" builders many decades ago when the workshop was in Ball's Pond Rd., then they had some other british builder until the number of sales required a contractor able to produce a larger volume.
Since many italian companies had moved their production from local contractors to far-east ones, their italian contractors were then used by Condor, as far as I know they still used them to this day.

Btw, there's many places you can get a good repair done, aside from Yates, I've seen very good jobs done by Argos, Bob Jackson is ok too; in south London you can ask Dave from Colourtech, or if you're around Margate there's Petor (Dear Susan bikes) who's capable and very friendly.

[willswitchengage]

Thanks all for the info... even if it wasn't conclusive! I've now fitted a 10 speed bar end shifter and fitted a 10s cassette I had lying around - so this is now a very versatile bike. It works surprisingly well although I had to 'manipulate' the cable routing in the derailleur a bit to get the indexing to work.

The dent only bothers me as the top tube is also now slightly belt as a result of what impact caused it. But is the dent itself an issue? The frames I have had fail in the past have done so through cracking or corrosion - and I highly doubt a dent like this would promote either in steel. Unless anybody has experience to the contrary!

Two new irritances though:

1. The BB is ridiculously low which severely restricts how quickly you can corner without bottoming out with a pedal.
2. The paint job is fairly crap. It's a high quality metallic colour like you'd get on a garish 90s car but around the lugs it hasn't been applied very evenly.

Still though it's brilliant to ride and suicide shifters are surprisingly enjoyable and easy to use. And looks the part, which is most important.

[peetee]

The dent and the bend are a serious issue. Think of the top tube as a drinks tin. All the time it is round it's pretty darn strong - to the point that with care you could get a child to stand on it without a problem. However, put a dent in the side and with your finger on one end and your thumb at the other you could fold the can over.
My guess is that as soon as you demand anything of this frame such as riding out the saddle on a steep hill your wheels will be leaning in opposite directions. Once that happens the whole main frame will have to be re jigged.

[willswitchengage]

Well it's done a couple of hundred miles so far with my legs producing literally watts of power - so as I don't have much choice I will keep plodding along for now

Have a gratuitous photo. The pannier rack offends me. One day I'll make it horizontal. The wheels are an old pair I got from a chap down the road who was putting them in his bin - well over a thousand miles later on my old bike they are still going strong.