Picked this guy up yesterday.
Ebay seller's pics, haven't got around to taking any decent ones of my own yet.
It's seen very, very little use. The brakes have barely left a mark on the rims. A couple of minor scuffs on the paint, but mostly just in need of a good wipe down and clean up. Cables and tyres are shot, of course, but the rest is very tidy.
The seller cunningly advertised it as a "vintage ladies' racing bike", which may have put a few potential buyers off. No doubt the previous = original) owner was a lady, but there's nothing especially effeminate about a 53cm Malvern Star Triathlete
According to
this catalogue, it seems the Triathlete was near the top of the MS pecking order in the mid-late 80s. The decals on the seat stays proclaim it to be triple-butted CrMo tubing... would they be cheeky enough to put that sticker on the seatstay if only the main tubes are butted? Yeah, probably... but anyway, it's still better than a bad thing. I particularly like the lugged fork crown, at a time when many of the competition were moving to unicrown forks.
It has a full "Exage Sport" 2x6 groupset. Looks just like this group:
http://velobase.com/ViewGroup.aspx?Grou ... 9c9b304caa... which dates it somewhere pretty close to 1989. That's an A450 group, so equlvalent to Tiagra in today's money.
I had a gate-sized Malvern Star Triathlete a few years back, with a full near-new Exge 500EX group. 7-speed and dual pivot brakes... definitely a step up from the Exage Sport. Possibly a couple of years later? Anyway, I sold that frame and put the components in a box waiting for a new home, so I'll probably fit them up to this one and put the Exage Sport bits in a box
I'm going to see if I can get a guestimate of purchase date off the seller. It still has a Dapto Cycles sticker on it, which confirms her story of having ridden around Wollongong.
tim
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