1993 Condor Professional 653

[sjcprojects]

This should be a 'proper' Retrobike build, seeing as 1) It involves bringing a bit of a wreck back to life and 2) It makes no financial sense. Actually I suppose considering the cost of a new Condor steel frame, maybe it could be justified financially, but needless to say that's not why we do this sort of thing, is it? Otherwise we'd all be bankrupt, as has often been pointed out. Still, I'll keep telling myself it's worth it as the cost inevitably spirals, as per usual

About a year ago I posted a thread trying to identify the model of a Condor I picked up on Marketplace for the princely sum of £25. I still haven't actually found out what model it is, though I have just got around to asking Condor (it makes a change to have a bike made by a company that is still in business) so maybe they will tell me more soon.

I picked it up based only on one crappy photo which showed the 653 decal, but I had no idea what make it was, or anything else, really, so to find out it was a Condor was a nice surprise. Anyway, it may have cost £25 but it was in quite rough shape, having obviously had a hard life at times. It had been kept out in the open in garden of the person I picked it up from, although he was definitely not the original owner, being far too short for it (hence the seatpost all the way down in the frame). Also one shifter didn't work at all, so he would have been riding it on the small ring only...though in Sheffield that is better than on the big ring only, I suppose.

It had been rebadged as a Reflex, who are a brand that make nasty Bike-Shaped-Objects. A bit of a come-down for what was once a rather nice bike. I felt very sorry for it. Yes, I know it's an inanimate object, but still.



I only have one not very good photo of the bike in the state that I got it, as it was smuggled in under the cover of night and swiftly taken apart as much as I could so as to avoid any interrogation the next day

The good points:

- It's a 653 Condor
- The wheels are original and in surprising good condition
- It's mostly original
- The seatpost was not stuck

The bad points:

- Nearly everything else

 

[sjcprojects]

Once stripped down, it was even more obvious how rusted the frame had become. It also has a dent in the downtube, but that can be filled in, the frame still seems aligned okay. The stuck stem was eventually freed by putting it in a vice and turning/pulling the frame. The bottom bracket has a date with a blowtorch in the nearish future.



The Reynolds decals have held up remarkably well – the paintwork, not so much. The paint is a not very inspiring greyish silver, so I'll take the opportunity to have it painted a nicer colour which will emphasize the nice stamped areas.



The plan is to go with a deep metallic blue, similar to that which appears in the 1990 Condor catalogue:



This is a very common colour for car paint, but I'm not sure what the RAL code for it would be. I'll have to see what the painters say. The stamped areas will be picked out in white. I already have the main decals bought direct from Condor, but they don't make the right headtube decal any more so I've had to recreate one:



I'll get that made by H Lloyd at the same time as ordering the 653 decals. The frame will be painted at Woodrups in Leeds, once the BB is finally freed and I get round to getting the train up there...

 

[Kempes]

I’m sure this is a Dave Yates built Condor, I have one, a mid 90’s 531 Designer select in metallic blue!
Dave is active on LFGSS he can confirm if you share the serial number with him. I love mine took it out today, lovely ride.

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/246809/?offset=425#comment17539985

 

[sjcprojects]

I’m sure this is a Dave Yates built Condor, I have one, a mid 90’s 531 Designer select in metallic blue!
Dave is active on LFGSS he can confirm if you share the serial number with him. I love mine took it out today, lovely ride.

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/246809/?offset=425#comment17539985

Excellent, thank you. I do have login details for LFGSS so I’ll post on there later tonight and hopefully find out.

 

[sjcprojects]

Well, that was quick. I got a quick reply from Dave Yates, who said 'Yes, one of ours, built 30/7/93 for someone called Perry. Condor model Pro in 653'. So there you have it. Thanks again for the tip @Kempes. Dave is indeed fielding plenty of enquiries over on LFGSS, it turns out.

I had ruled out the idea of it being a Professional, partly because they were usually built in 531c, and also the ones I had seen had the internal cable routing in the top tube. But looking at the 1990 catalogue, that was an optional extra in 1990, so presumably it still was in 93:




This does mean that if I'm going to be totally catalogue correct with the frame restoration, it should also have decals on the top tube and forks, which I'd have to also recreate. To me this is going a little overboard, if I were to do it just based on what I like I would leave those off, but then it does seem right to do this as accurately as possibly. Something else to ponder.

 

[sjcprojects]

Having just got that information from Dave Yates, today I got a reply to my email to Condor, which says 'I can confirm that this is a Condor Squadra. It would have been built in 1993, the 77th frame of that year hence the frame number 7793.' The important thing to note here is that in my email to them I had mentioned that I thought it might be a Squadra due to it being 653 (which in the 1996 catalogue is shown as being a model built in 653 – sadly I've not been able to find a 1993 catalogue). Obviously the other info about the frame number is something I already knew anyway.

Condor also said they don't have any existing order books from that period, whereas Dave Yates says he has all the original order books - so I think the guy from Condor has just taken a bit of a guess there, and there's no reason not to go with what Dave Yates said. On top of the info from him, the lugs on mine look exactly like those in the image above. Not that it really matters, I just tend to feel it's nice to know as much as possible about a bike.

The fact that the bike came with an engraved seatpost and stem also seems to point to it being a professional, although of course this bike would have been individually specced, so maybe I'm reading too much into that. It also has a BB shell that is chamfered for a threadless Mavic 610 BB, which I would presume was not the default option for this frame. All of which makes it seem like a high-end bike, but then it was also built up with a Veloce groupset which in 1993 was at the bottom of the Campagnolo hierarchy – but then I guess this would have been the easiest way to save some money on what would have been a pretty expensive bike at the time.




Anyway, the stem is not in too bad a condition, though it will need some careful masking to protect the logos, as the top is a bit scratched up so some repainting will be needed. Sadly I think the seatpost is too far gone to save the engraved areas – this is actually the better side. I guess I'll see what I can do, but I think I'll be lucky to make it presentable enough to go on a newly painted frame.

 

[hamster]

Looks like it will turn out lovely.
I've some very nice pointy top Record Ergos (9s) which would look lovely on that if you are interested.

 

[Kempes]

Having just got that information from Dave Yates, today I got a reply to my email to Condor, which says 'I can confirm that this is a Condor Squadra. It would have been built in 1993, the 77th frame of that year hence the frame number 7793.' The important thing to note here is that in my email to them I had mentioned that I thought it might be a Squadra due to it being 653 (which in the 1996 catalogue is shown as being a model built in 653 – sadly I've not been able to find a 1993 catalogue). Obviously the other info about the frame number is something I already knew anyway.

Condor also said they don't have any existing order books from that period, whereas Dave Yates says he has all the original order books - so I think the guy from Condor has just taken a bit of a guess there, and there's no reason not to go with what Dave Yates said. On top of the info from him, the lugs on mine look exactly like those in the image above. Not that it really matters, I just tend to feel it's nice to know as much as possible about a bike.

The fact that the bike came with an engraved seatpost and stem also seems to point to it being a professional, although of course this bike would have been individually specced, so maybe I'm reading too much into that. It also has a BB shell that is chamfered for a threadless Mavic 610 BB, which I would presume was not the default option for this frame. All of which makes it seem like a high-end bike, but then it was also built up with a Veloce groupset which in 1993 was at the bottom of the Campagnolo hierarchy – but then I guess this would have been the easiest way to save some money on what would have been a pretty expensive bike at the time.


View attachment 890837

Anyway, the stem is not in too bad a condition, though it will need some careful masking to protect the logos, as the top is a bit scratched up so some repainting will be needed. Sadly I think the seatpost is too far gone to save the engraved areas – this is actually the better side. I guess I'll see what I can do, but I think I'll be lucky to make it presentable enough to go on a newly painted frame.

My blue condor professional also came with the same engraved seat post (stuck & melted out with caustic soda) and stem (too long sold), when I was doing my own research I read on a forum (forgotten which but not LFGSS) that Dave Yates used to post on the branded cast Condor lugs and bottom bracket were reserved for the higher / highest quality Condors so I think yours is defo a professional.

 

[sjcprojects]

Looks like it will turn out lovely.
I've some very nice pointy top Record Ergos (9s) which would look lovely on that if you are interested.

Thanks – I'll be keeping it with Campagnolo gears and brakes – upgrading from Veloce to mainly Athena/Chorus. And it will be properly shiny .

I am aiming pretty high with this one compared to some previous builds I've done, I must say. Fingers crossed it all comes together both during and after the repaint. I've never used Woodrups before, but I've seen some of their work and it looks good. It was going to be between them or Mercian, but obviously that decision has been made for me, unfortunately.

I have already sourced some decent Athena 8sp Ergos, and a Chorus RD - plus the wheels are 8 speed too – so I'm already pretty committed to the original 8 speed at this point. Probably lucky, because otherwise you might have tempted me into trying to do a full Record build...

 

[sjcprojects]

The stuck BB is now out, and the decal artwork is with H Lloyd so once I get those back I can get the frame painted.

I've already assembled most of the parts I need. Originally I was going to restore the Veloce parts that came on the bike, but considering they aren't anything special, and due to the painted finish would have to be taken back to bare metal and resprayed, that wouldn't really be worth it.

I had some luck on eBay with the brakes when some NOS Athena ones turned up. The fact that they were not listed with the magic letters 'NOS', and were an actual auction rather than Buy It Now meant I got them for a decent price. These ones are from 1995, so close enough date-wise. I've always liked the look of the monoplaner brakes anyway, so to me these are a big improvement over the original Veloce ones: