Canvassing opinion on condor build

[Holiocornolio]

Hi all. New to the forum and to retro bikes in general, but I've been toying with the idea of a resto job for a while and recently, in a drunken evening eBay trawl, picked up a nice condor baracchi frameset from the mid 80s. It's a bare framest, All that's left of the gruppo is a campag chorus headset, and whilst I quite like the idea of rebuilding in in campag, my wallet doesn't, and I have no objection to considering all gruppo manufacturers. My aim is to build the bike to an almost as new condition so I have been trawling eBay and vintage parts dealers to see what's generally available and get an idea of pricing. My only stipulation about parts is that they should be pre 1987 as I do quite fancy having a go at the eroica some day.
I don't have a budget in mind at this point and I will be building this up over a couple of years so spreading the cost a little bit, but I guess my question is this: you almost never see older condors dressed in anything other than campy, so is it sacrilege for me to be considering a Shimano build. I actually like the look of the early 105 stuff and early 80s 600 series Shimano is quite nice too. Or is that just wrong? Or..... What about suntour. There's some nice nos suntour stuff knocking about... Thoughts? Opinions? Advice and opinions all welcomed.

 

[Midlife]

Unloved Victory / Triumphe can crop up cheap sometimes?

 

[Holiocornolio]

Unloved Victory / Triumphe can crop up cheap sometimes?

Ooh one for the ideas pot. Thanks

 

[bagpuss]

Re:

I would look for something different . Sach New Success comes to mind . Well made and work fine,That said it is out of your time period?
http://lecycleur.com/parts/history-of-s ... w-success/

http://www.disraeligears.co.uk/Site/Sac ... lleur.html

 

[jim haseltine]

Re:

Shimano was less common back then compared to these days. Probably even less common than a full Suntour set up. However, because indexed gears didn't exist there weren't any issues around running mixed systems - at various times I rode mixtures of CLB (brakes), Suntour (gears), Zeus (chain set & hubs) then dropped the Suntour in favour of more Zeus stuff then later still moved to Campagnolo.
IMO, as long as the kit is period it doesn't matter what is on the bike.

 

[pigman]

Re:

If you have plans of riding eroica and want a group set approach, think of something with external brake cables.
I personally think 6400 tricolour is a great value & great functioning group. However, it seems quite unloved, the flip side to this is prices are cheapish.

 

[Holiocornolio]

Re: Re:

If you have plans of riding eroica and want a group set approach, think of something with external brake cables.
I personally think 6400 tricolour is a great value & great functioning group. However, it seems quite unloved, the flip side to this is prices are cheapish.

Seem to be some decent full groups available of the 6400 for not much. It's definitely one for the pot, but I'm not averse to the mix and match approach either that said, . Did suntour ever offer a full group incl headset, hubs and chainset?

 

[Pionir]

Tricolour is all you need in a groupset imho but you might need to pick up individual components one at a time. I have a rear mech for sale btw

Alternatively you could look at Campag Athena - from memory it came out in 1988 but looks quite similar to Chorus, if a bit heavier. The thing that would put me off though is the horror stories of Campag synchro indexing.

Shimano SIS "just works". I have some 6 speed Exage Sport DT shifters (missing the insert for frame bosses though) which I'm never going to use which you can have gratis if they're of interest.

 

[Nob]

Suntour Superb is excellent quality but seems scarce these days.

 

[Holiocornolio]

Tricolour is all you need in a groupset imho but you might need to pick up individual components one at a time. I have a rear mech for sale btw

Alternatively you could look at Campag Athena - from memory it came out in 1988 but looks quite similar to Chorus, if a bit heavier. The thing that would put me off though is the horror stories of Campag synchro indexing.

Shimano SIS "just works". I have some 6 speed Exage Sport DT shifters (missing the insert for frame bosses though) which I'm never going to use which you can have gratis if they're of interest.

Lots to think about so far. I'm still stuck on what colour to refinish the frame TBH (stay with OG colour or something new and fancy?).
Indexing is a nice to have feature, but it's not essential for what I have in mind. Unless I can find a suntour gruppo for a very good price then I will probably go the 600 route (might drop you a PM about the deraileur). 600 seems to be in quite plentiful supply and even some NOS stuff knocking about. Knowing how my brain works, i will probably have to buy just one component in order to direct my thinking and inject some discipline into my parts search - it.
Interested by the athena suggestion. didn't athena start at 8 speed? rear drop outs are 125mm and I don't want to reset, so I think I'm maxed out for speeds with the tricolor. That said, I guess I could mix and match... Thats the one thing that keeps bringing me back to campag, is that I think I could get away with mixing campag components more easily than shimano or suntour... or am I wrong?

One thing that does keep coming back to nag at me though, is having ridden 10 and 11 speed and a compact for the past i don't know how long, should I cut myself some slack and allow for at least a compact chainring setup? I really don't fancy having 42 x 26 as my lowest gear. Or is that sacrilege?