高性能自転車二輪車 Early Tushingham B52 High Performance Two Wheeler

[was8v]

You can see theres a burr where the head tube had its hole stamped out.

This stopped the rear of the headset cup seating completely at the back. It looks like this is seamed tubing and the seam runs down the back there too.

I removed the cup and filed it smooth and knocked the cup back in. It seats much better now.

 

[was8v]

Possibly controversially I am going to downgrade this to the kit it may have come with.

The front mech is exage mountain, as far as I can tell they were specced with that series.

So the m730 and mt62 is going.

It has a Deore uniglide chain, which may be original? Unworn 12" dead between 12 links.

I doubt it was mt60? Anyway I've scored a donor with exage mountain, so those bits will go on this.

I think too often the functional mid range stuff is neglected. Anyway, the frame is kinda midrange anyway, it's not handmade in the UK nor some wonder material, just a fairly standard construction thing.

 

[jimo746]

Nice bike, I believe Exage Mountain was standard spec, at least the B52 I had for a while was. Chain probably original too to match the Uniglide rear.
Looks like it's had a relatively easy retirement on the trainer at least.

 

[was8v]

Stripped and cleaned, I clicked any loose paint off and wire wooled any rust. Looks much better and can see the white is pearl effect.

Awaiting donor for parts!

 

[Andy T]

Very nice, another early one surfaces, welcome to the club

Andy

 

[was8v]

The exage doner arrived an 88 palisades Trail.


And was quickly stripped of its exage and sold on. A lovely looking frame itself.



Leaving me with some juicy loot:



Now the original spec sheet says exage, as far as I can tell from other threads they were mostly exage mountain. This spec sheet is later than my frame I think, as I don't have b52 decals and bars are black.



The frame came to me with an exage mountain front mech

The haul from the Marin has exage mountain u brake, rear mech. The levers front brake and chainset are exage trail. Close enough I think given the rarity of exage mountain.

The wheels are black araya rims on joytech with a Shimano 6 freewheel. These will do.....

Sadly the pedal thread was stripped in the right crank, but legrandfromage came to the rescue with an identical looking 400lx chainset, the exage trail sticker was transferred.

All this exage stuff is used which matches the patina of the frame.

Luckily I'm not a NOS kind of guy.

 

[was8v]

Annnnnd woosh! Just like that a rider is built:

 

[Tsundere]

Lovely.

 

[Splatter Paint]

Nice!

 

[Fx_1970]

Hi,
I've just discovered this thread, what a amazing find ! This bike has probably be setup by the founder of Orange bikes itself (at the time he was - if I well understand - the designer and main racer of Tushingham bikes). Great story !

You have done a very good job to put in again on the road. Finding "Exage Mountain" stuff is not easy. I'm trying to find parts to achieve the same result , without success for the moment (I was looking only for parts, not a complete bike, perhaps an error ...).

My bike is the one just before yours in the main Tushingham thread (https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/tushingham-resource-pool.203977/page-13). He has no stickers and very few original parts. I'm even not sure if it was build with Tange MTB PG tubes or with the Triple butted ones
Another curious point is the length of the space for the rear hub when I remove the wheel : 128mm !! The current rear wheel (an heavy, large single wall Rigida from 1986) is fitted with a 126mm old Deore hub, perhaps it could explain it...

Could you please give some information based on your (B-52) bike :
- What is the diameter of the seat post ? Could you see directly inside the seat tube three different thickness ?
- What is the length of the space for the rear hub ? 130mm as we can expect at this time ?

With my best wishes for this new year ...