Rocky II

[cdngrimpeur]

In trying to pin point stuff by exclution Im pretty much convinced this should be a Blizzard. This actually supported by a small detail that I thoughed of yesterday evening. This frame has an ovalisation on its seattube, near the BB. This distinctive feature is what one finds on Tange tube sets. The Avalanche was completely constructed out of 'plain' 4130 CrMo, whereas the Blizzard had Tange tubes in the front traingle and 'plain' 4130 CrMo for the stays....

I hate to complicate things for you here, but I too have the seat tube that ovalises as it enters the BB.

The 'grades' of cro-mo that went into the builds were all Tange's: Prestige for the Blizz, 'MTB' for the Ava. and Hammer, Infinity for the Fusion.


For fun, I checked the Toyo site, they have made bikes for a few favourites on this site. I wish I could read Japanese.

Oh well, I like looking at pics of bikes being constructed. Boy, I really wish I had those skillz.

 

[Jeroen]

Hmm... your screenshot gave me an idea... Im going to contact Toyo.. they for sure have records on these frames. With the framenumber they should be able to tell me 'what' it should be... Why didnt I think about that before?

 

[Jeroen]

Still a hot issue in my daily goings; determining what the actuall model name is of this now called 'Rocky Mountain Mysterious'....

Lance Bohlen is owner of Kore Products and I thoughed there must be a way to contact him. Via some detours I ended up with him mailing with the question 'you where looking for me?'.

Well, we emailed a bit back and forward about the details of these frames. Some details he mentioned fit this frame, some didn't, here's the last email I got from him this morning.

This is why I really like the internet so much...

Hi Jeroen,
Now that I think about it, because of the 130 spacing, I suspect you have a
1986 Blizzard - the first year of production. It makes sense because of the
serial number too. I think it decodes to - January 1986!

The original colour was a very light Sky Blue. Look for that colour inside
the frame. I'm not positive of the model year, it might be 1987 but probably
it is 1986. Its Definitely not an '88. If so, you have a very rare frame as
we probably only made a few hundred of those bikes.

The first Toyo Blizzards had 130 spacing because we used a Dura-Ace cassette
road hub with 130 spacing. At that time it was the only cassette hub
available (Deore and XT at that time only had screw-on freewheels). I also
remember that it was the first year of the "U brake". No 3-hole plastic
cable guides were easily available so we used brazed-on loops. Later bikes
had 135 spacing and plastic cable guides.

Its also possible a pump peg was used. Probably designed for a Silica
(Italian) road frame pump which came in about a 100 different lengths. The
pump body could be painted to match the frame!

Original decals would be impossible to find I'd imagine. That was 22 years
ago. Any decals that old would be dust by now. Digital files? Did we even
have digital back then?? I think that was before fax machines! My brother
(now deceased) designed the decals by hand and we mailed the artwork to the
decal vendor...

I'm sure I have an original catalog in my files back home. I'll be there in
about 3 weeks (I'm in Taiwan now). So drop me a line then and I'll have more
info. Who knows what I might have in an old box somewhere . Maybe I have
something I can scan for you....

Thanks for the trip down "Memory Lane"!

-Lance

 

[gump]

Nice one Jeroen!

Great response. He sounds really pleased you contacted him.

So the mystery is nearly over?

 

[Jeroen]

close.. but nog cigar...

I won't rest untill I have 100% confirmation and I wont start restoring it before I know exactly what would be 'correct' to do with this frame....

 

[gump]

makes sense - sounds like you could have something pretty special there. Or actually more special, its already good

 

[Jeroen]

The pre '90s sloping RM frames are rare in away they were never sold at this end of the globe in that era. Only later on early '90s the Germans kicked in and got some RMs to Europe. Even on the North American continent they aren't that avid (anymore). This being a very early one tops it indeed. Sometimes one has to have luck to find something like this. Than again.... we have a long way to go before this is in a shape I can live with....

 

[bagpipes]

The pre '90s sloping RM frames are rare in away they were never sold at this end of the globe in that era. Only later on early '90s the Germans kicked in and got some RMs to Europe. Even on the North American continent they aren't that avid (anymore). This being a very early one tops it indeed. Sometimes one has to have luck to find something like this. Than again.... we have a long way to go before this is in a shape I can live with....

Any updates on this little beauty Jeroen?

 

[bagpipes]

May as well ask again to keep this thread going. I'm interested to hear if this seach has advanced any further or if you've shared a few pints with Chris or Lance lately?

If you've given up, PM me and I'll buy it.