Late Era Steel MTB

[Brian73]

Picked up this oddball MTB today going cheap

Daft name for an MTB

Townsend (Not the best make in the world I know, I remember their first MTBs from the late 80s)

When I saw the picture in the ad I thought it was aluminium with the big tubes and welds, then I noticed dropouts looked like stamped steel. It did indeed turn out to be oversized steel tubing.

The V-brakes take post type canti brake blocks, never seen these before

Shimano STI shifters, cup and cone BB, 7 speed freewheel, 1 inch quill stem 22.2mm insert, single wall alloy rims.

Looks almost un-ridden, those are the original amberwall tyres

Bought it in case the snow comes back, should be a good slush basher.

[Brucey]

Picked up this oddball MTB today going cheap

Daft name for an MTB ....

cheap and basic machine, that.

BTW 'Oberon' is 'the king of the fairies'

just be sure that your 'midwinter night's dream' doesn't turn into a nightmare...

cheers

[Brian73]

Wonder if the ladies model was called Titania

Anyhow, apart from some new cable inners and rim tape it owes me less than a tank of fuel for the car, about 300 miles

[sreten]

When I saw the picture in the ad I thought it was aluminium with the big tubes and welds,

Hi, the thickness of the welds immediately indicates it must be steel, rgds, sreten.

[Tonyf33]

1992 is the date for these
simple magnet test will make certain if it's ally or steel, it look a decent quality frame & has an integral derailleur hanger so can't be bad. Townsend had an 'Overlord' MTB frame with an oversize 'mega' tube in steel but not elliptical.

[Bicycler]

1992 is the date for these.

v-brakes on a '92 budget bike?

[Tonyf33]

1992 is the date for these.

v-brakes on a '92 budget bike?

I've never said it was a budget bike, the frame doesn't look like a clunker IMO. The components certainly have an early-mid 90s flavour to them..there was also mention of one on the retrobike forum some while back..

[Si]

Don't think we had V brakes back in '92 did we? That's not to say that the bike doesn't date from then - they could easily be an upgrade. As for the block mount - a number of early V brakes had them like that, such as shimano's STX.

[Tonyf33]

V-brakes as we know them came in around the early 80s (though similar linear designs have been around many decades before apparently) by the late 80s they began to come into production. Avid who only started up in 1991 & a newcomer to the market produced the then worlds lightest V-brake in 1992 the 'Tri-Align'. Shimano was a latecomer to the party in the mid 90s
I would think the v-brakes might well be added later but the frame itself was a 1992 model

[Brian73]

These look like early V brakes because they take post type cantilever brake blocks. Would say they're original as there's no canti hanger on the seat stays.

The groupset is Shimano Tourney entry level stuff with EF28 shifters and TY30 chainset. Rodi rims though

Rides nice.

[Bikefayre]

Shimano Acera v-brakes would fit that for about £25 a pair. You get a decent Shimano Megerange derailleur for £25 from sjscycles.co.uk Also you can get decent wheels from wooollyhatshop.com for £30 a pair. Have no reason why this should not last as have had a basic Peugeot like this for over ten years plus is easy to fix. Fit Schwalbe Winter not the dearer Marathon tyres from sjscycles.co.uk You can decent blocks for £2 from sjscycles.co.uk which fit these brakes and the newer Allen bolt kind. A VENTURA chain can be got for £3 from sjscycles.co.uk