Old Ribble steel bike made by Martelly? Pic heavy

jamesdak

Old School Hero
This showed up locally and I was curious. Honestly don't know who made this or if it's really a Ribble.

Here's what I've found so far, Columbus SL tubing according to the badge. The are ridges on the inside of the fork steerer and the whole seat tube looks smooth inside.

It's got a nice Cinelli stem and sweet Giro D'italia 64 bars. Total mismash of components. Dura Ace D.T. shifters. 105 levers, 600 brakes, 600 52/42 crank, 105 headset, Mavic F.D., 600 R.D., Tiogra/CXP23 wheels, and a 600 AX seatpost.

The weird thing is it's got a number tab braze-on. I haven't found another old Ribble like that is my searching so far. What else is a bit odd are the club cutouts in the lugs. Several makers use them but I haven't found a match yet. Nice long point lugs with scalloped caps on the seatstays. Another surprise is how relatively light the bike is. As pictured with saddle, pedals and even the computer it's a respectable 21 lbs 11 ozs.

I'm sure the Tiogra wheelset is not the lightest of wheelsets. The only thing I've found wrong so far is one really loose rear spoke. Funny thing is the wheel is still true.

The paint is really pretty good with some minor marks. The decals seem like a thick vinyl and are starting to come up on the edges. I suspect repaint but it was fairly flat when I got it. I treated it to paint polish and then wax before the pictures.

There is a chain hanger but no pump peg and only one bottle mount. This is making me think early 80s. The dropouts have no names on them and there's no markings of any sort on the BB. That said there is a Portacatena dropout on this which should point to Campagnolo, right?

It came with a Cat Eye Mity 3 – Mapei, Quick Step, Colnago version attached that fired up just fine as soon as I threw in a new battery.

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Re: Old Ribble steel bike made by who? Pic heavy

Lovely bike! Is there a frame number?
 
Re: Old Ribble steel bike made by who? Pic heavy

Ron Cooper mainly used Columbus...
 
Re: Old Ribble steel bike made by who? Pic heavy

CTK":31h8fh80 said:
Lovely bike! Is there a frame number?

Nope, I've found no markings at all. No serial number, no size stamp, no tubing stamp, etc.
 
Re: Old Ribble steel bike made by who? Pic heavy

Midlife":26rs0rpz said:
Martelly? I think that's how it's spelt...


Yep, that's what several other folks on Facebook have been thinking.

That would be cool with as I don't have a Belgium bike.
 
Re: Old Ribble steel bike made by who? Pic heavy

Portacatena dropouts so we are into the 70'-80's so maybe the internal routing was done by Ribble later?
 
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I emailed Ribble about it yesterday and sent some pics. They did respond this morning saying they look into it to see what they can tell me. So that's totally cool of them.
 
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So two responses back from Eddy Martens of Martelly bikes. They did make that frame back in 1985 and it is Columbus SL.

He responded to some more questions by saying that they used to sell to a Belgium Wholesaler who use the Diamond Brand. They still seem to be in business.

The other night I played around with some other wheelsets for this. First I threw on a set of Fulcrum Racing 3's with Conti GP 4000s II 700 x 25 tires. They fit just fine and dropped the weight of the built up bike down to 20 lbs, 5 ozs. So this can easily be a sub 20 lb bike.

Then I threw on some tubular wheels with 700 x 27 Veloflex Vlaanderen tires. They fit with plenty of clearance also.
 
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