Stablemate for my orange Centurion Professional

By now if you've poked around this blog at all, you'll have seen a few posts about my shiny orange Centurion Professional and how I came to have it.  Over the years since I got that bike, I've learned a lot about the brand, and I've seen quite a few other models, but never another Professional in person, and very few even online.

I did however see a fair number of the next model down, the Semi Professional (called the Semi Pro in some years), both in person and online and in various internet groups to which I belong.  I even had a 79-82 Semi Pro frame that I built up and rode as a fixed gear for a few years before selling it (which I regret).  On the IBOB (Internet Bridgestone Owners Bunch) and Classic Rendezvous mailing lists, some of us even jokingly referred to ourselves as a sort of informal Centurion Professional/Semi Pro club.

You can probably see where this is headed... years of looking at and reading about others' Semi Pros got me to thinking I'd really like one as a stablemate to my lovely orange Professional.  In particular, I really liked the pale blue ones, which looked really classy and made a nice complement to the orange.  Now and then I'd look for one online, but never really found one I liked in my size (24.5" to 25.5" or so).  And in the mailing lists, I'd now and then comment on how much I wanted one.

One day I spied a particularly sharp looking blue 1977 Semi Professional posted by the fellow who had recently bought it.  I commented on what a nice bike it was, and we exchanged some messages and I shared some info I had on Centurions.  I of course told him if he ever wanted to part with it, I wanted to be the first to know.  Then some time later, I casually asked what size his bike was, and he responded that it was a 25.5"... and went on to say he'd just been thinking of me, as he was considering parting with the bike.  Well, one thing lead to another, and before long, the bike was at my shop.

It took me longer than I'd planned to get it put back together and ready to ride.  I ended up re-lacing the wheels with new spokes, and put new cables and brake hoods, and a few other small things, but overall I kept the bike as it came to me, and it looks really great and rides great.  Compared to the Professional it's a bit more laid back and stretched out, as it's more of a classic "sport tourer" of its era, where the Professional was meant to be a true racing bike.  The finish is very much like the Professional, with a pearlescent blue paint over a chrome plated base, with some of the chrome showing through at fork ends, dropouts, some of the lugs, etc.

The components on the bike are very good, nearly as good as the Professional.  Front and rear derailleurs are SunTour Cyclones on both bikes, which at the time were the top of the SunTour line (bumped down a notch a year or two later when Superbe was introduced), while the shifters are the PDM Power Ratchet shifters on the Semi Pro vs. the Cyclones on the Professional.  The brakes are Dia Compe Gran Compe, the first generation of that model as near as I can tell.  The crankset on the Semi Professional is a Sugino Mighty Compe, a step down from the Mighty Custom on the Pro.  Hubs on both bikes are Sansin Pro Am, but the rims on the Semi Pro are 27" single wall rims about 22mm wide.  The Pro originally would have had "sewup" racing tires and rims, but mine now has narrow 20mm clincher rims.  The most obvious difference at first glance of course, is that many of the components on the Semi Professional have black elements while the Professional has all silver components.  Both look really great, though truth be told, I'm a traditionalist and like my parts silver.

I set the bike up with orange bar tape, and plan to change out the bar tape on my Professional to pale blue, so the two bikes will sort of mirror each other.  Stay tuned for a "family photo shoot" when I have the time.

Photos of the Semi Professional are here:  1977 Centurion Semi Professional

Catalog Scan of the 1977-78 Centurion Catalog: Centurion Catalog

Photos of the Professional are here:  1978 Centurion Professional

Specialized Sequoia Makeover Project - Pt 2

Cleaned up, reassembled, mostly complete.

When I first got the bike, I figured it was in decent mechanical shape, but a bit grungy and rough looking.  So then I got down to taking it all apart and cleaning the frame, which turned out to be in much better shape than I had expected.  Under the grime, there was bright, clear paint, and very, very few scratches or flaws.  Even the decals were pretty much perfect, which is pretty rare on a frame this old and clearly ridden a lot.  The various components were pretty grungy and needed cleaning and overhaul, but I also looked at the parts mix and gave some thought to changing it.  As I explained in an earlier post, as near as I have been able to determine, the 1982 Sequoia was sold as a frameset, and built up to the buyer's requests.  This freed me to rebuild it with my own preferred mix, keeping some parts and changing others.

SunTour Cyclone II derailleurs and Sugino AT crankset

To start with, the bike had Campagnolo Nuovo Record cranks, which back in my younger days, I might have kept, since they are great quality and worked great if you could live with the gearing options they offered.  I'm older now, and appreciate having lower gears, or at least a "bail out" or "granny" gear, and that wasn't an option with those cranks.  Furthermore, the arms themselves were a really long 180mm (170 is pretty typical for road bikes of this era), and while I'm tall with long legs, I don't really feel I need them that long.  In their place, I installed a set of one of my favorite cranksets, a Sugino AT with three chainrings instead of two, giving a wider, more versatile range of gears.  As an added bonus, I found someone who wanted to buy the long Campy cranks, which brought in almost half of what I had paid for the bike.  Initially set up with MKS Sylvan Track pedals and toe clips, I later put a set of Wellgo SPD pedals instead.  I figure I can swap them out depending on mood.

SunTour Superbe brakes

In a similar vein, the rear derailleur was a lovely, early version of the Shimano Dura-Ace mechanism.  Those are really great, smooth shifting units, but designed solely for racing, and very limited in the range of rear sprockets they can work with.  So I opted for a SunTour Cyclone GTII ofr the correct period, which would work with the wide range chainrings up front, as well as giving me more options at the rear.  And the Cyclone was a match for the front derailleur the bike came with, which I kept.  Likewise, the original owner had put SunTour bar end shifters ("barcons") on the bike, and they are a personal favorite of mine, so they stayed.  Very smooth operating and right at your fingertips at the end of the handlebars.

Nitto bars and stem, Superbe brake levers, SunTour barcons

Speaking of handlebars, the bike came with a very aggressively curved drop handlebar, a style I really just don't care for, and a stem that didn't bring the bars up very high, so those were also discarded and replaced with a more conventional Nitto B115 bar and Technomic stem.  The original brakes were odd, in that the front was a standard reach Campy sidepull, but the rear was short reach with a drop bolt.  No idea why they would have done that.  I had a set of SunTour Superbe levers and calipers and used those instead.  Gorgeous and they work great.  I kept the original seat post, and ultimately put a Brooks B17 saddle on it. 

Avocet Mod II hubs, Super Champion Gentleman rims

Finally, the wheels and tires.  The bike came with a set of wheels built around Avocet Mod. II hubs with sealed cartridge bearings, laced to Super Champion Gentleman 20mm wide clincher rims.  Once I checked and found the hub bearings perfectly smooth, I just couldn't think of a better option for this bike. Avocet was a USA based company that offered a range of components made by Ofmega of Italy, including hubs, cranks, and seat posts. They were probably better known for a longer time as selling some really nice tires, but they closed down operations some years ago. Super Champion was a French rim maker who were among the first to offer a narrow, lightweight box section rim that brought higher performance to clincher wheels.  I tried the bike out with the original Specialized tires for a ride or two, but they didn't ride that great, so I changed them over to some Compass/Rene Herse 700x28 Chinook Pass tires, which are high end, supple and fast tires.

So, how does the bike ride?  In a word, great.  Tim Neenan really hit a home run with the design of the Sequoia in my opinion.  Reasonably light, stiff enough for good power transmission, but with enough "give" in the frame for comfort.  As I said at the beginning of this, when I was younger I really wanted the stiffer, racier Allez model, but for where I am now the Sequoia is just about perfect.  If I wanted, I could put wider, cushier tires on it, even with fenders, and there are mounts for a rear rack if I wanted to carry some stuff.  It's not really designed for fully loaded touring, but if I wanted to do some long day rides, or some "credit card touring", I'd certainly consider this bike for it.  And it's a really beautiful bike too, without being overtly flashy.  I'm really glad I found it... or it found me.

Finished bike after a ride.  Yes, white tape.

I never did find out who told the owner they should bring it to me, but I'll always be grateful to whomever it was.

Specialized Sequoia Makeover Project - Pt 1

Note: you might want to read my earlier post "It followed me home..." if you haven't read it yet to see the backstory to this bike.

I'm the sort of guy who wants to know as much about a bike I own as I can learn - when and where was it built, by whom, how was it originally equipped, and anything else I can find out about it.  So, once I got this Sequoia, I went to the internet to see what I could piece together.  Here's what I've learned or surmised, based on material found online and asking in a couple of internet discussion groups.  One bit of luck, I got input from Jim Merz, who was a product designer for Specialized starting shortly after this bike was built, it seems.

Serial numbers are a very good place to start when investigating a bike.  That is typically the most reliable way to find out who built the frame, and when it was built.  Now, some of you might be sitting there thinking "Doesn't the fact it has that 'Specialized' decal on it tell you who built it?  Well, it's not that simple.  The company name on a bike does not always tell you who actually built the bike.  In fact, in the heyday of Japanese road bikes (1970s - 90s), more often than not, the brand name was just that - a brand, a label, usually cooked up by some importing company.  For example, there was no Specialized factory back when this bike was built.  Specialized (at the time Specialized Bicycle Imports) was one of those importers who contracted with a variety of manufacturers to make their products for them, including bikes.

So, if Specialized didn't actually make this bike, who did?  Well, thanks to past experience, I had a suspicion, and when I went to a couple of internet mailing lists where people know these things, I found out I was right.  It helped tremendously that Jim Merz, who was a product and bike designer for Specialized in the early days, was on one of the lists I checked.  What I've learned is that the frame was built by a Japanese company by the name of Miki, who built frames for a number of different brands.  In fact, the orange Centurion I own that I've written about several times, was also built by Miki.  I've seen several examples of their work, and it's very high quality work.

Serial number stamped in bb shell. M = Miki 82 = year built.

The second thing I learned from the serial number is that the frame was built in 1982.  Further research, and examining the parts on the bike have lead me to believe the original owner bought it as a frame and fork, and built it up (or had a shop build it up) using a mix of parts that the owner specified.  In fact, I'm pretty sure in 1982 that was the ONLY way you could get a Specialized bike, as the only literature I've been able to find shows only frames and forks for sale, not complete bikes.  This goes a long way toward explaining the mix of Campagnolo and Shimano and SunTour parts on the bike, as few, if any bike companies would mix and match like that for a stock build.

Next I'll write out the whole overhaul and rebuild, explaining my choices along the way.  To tide you over, here are a few shots of details of the frame once I got it cleaned.

 Oh, a good place to start in researching serial numbers for some brands of bikes built in Asia:


https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vintage/1042901-asian-serial-number-guide.html

Stay tuned!

Seat cluster showing the scalloped seat stay tops and thinned lug.

Bottom bracket area.

Main triangle.

Rear brake bridge with reinforcements.

Rear dropouts.  Frame is chromed under the paint.

Left chain stay with name of Tim Neenan, who designed the original Sequoias.  He currently builds under the Lighthouse Cycles brand.

Fork crown.

It followed me home...

... well, not exactly.  What really happened is that one day at the shop, totally out of the blue, a guy came in and asked if I was Tim.  When I said I was, he said "I met a guy who told me I should show you a bike I have."  I was puzzled, but thought, okay, why not, and went outside to take a look.  I really wasn't expecting much, honestly.

When I got outside, I was really surprised to see an early 80s Specialized Sequoia road bike, a very early one that you don't see very often.  At first I wasn't sure if he was just showing off a cool bike, or looking for a buyer, but pretty soon it was clear it was the latter.  And given what it was, and the fact that it was my size, I was definitely intrigued.  It looked to be in good shape, though sorely in need of a good cleaning and overhaul, and some new bar wrap and cable housing.

Specialized Sequoia, as it arrived.

For a little bit of background, while Specialized is one of the really big names in bikes these days, back in the late 70s/early 80s, they were a new company offering a small selection of good quality, imported products for bikes.  At the time, the name of the company was Specialized Bicycle Imports, and were probably best known for their line of high quality clincher tires, a relatively new thing back then.  Somewhere around 1980-82, they introduced a small selection of bicycles, first starting with framesets, then full bikes, as I recall.  The first two models offered were the Allez, designed for road racing, and the Sequoia, more of a general, all around road bike, what used to be called a "sport tourer" back then.  When I was younger, I really wanted an Allez, with it's racing geometry and striking, simple red finish.  Now that I'm older, and will never race again, the Sequoia is much more my style... though truth be told, if an Allez in my size came my way, I wouldn't pass it up!

Back to the bike in question... the fellow who owned it said he'd seen similar bikes on eBay for $XXX, but he'd be willing to sell it to me for half that.  Now, I do keep my eye on the classic bike market, so I knew that a) he was right about asking prices on eBay and b) the offered price was very fair, even a bit of a bargain.  Not a steal, but a good deal for sure, especially for an uncommon bike in a fairly uncommon size.  I told him I'd think about it, and we exchanged information.  It didn't take me 24 hours to decide I wanted it, once I had some time to think and do some research.  So I met up with him, and exchanged cash for the bike.

Here are a few shots of some details of the bike:

Early 80s Shimano Dura Ace rear derailleur.

Campagnolo Nuovo Record crankset, with 180mm arms (really long!) and Look pedals.

Rear Avocet Mod. II hub and SunTour 6 speed freewheel.

Campagnolo Record sidepull brakes.

Front Avocet Mod. II hub and Super Champion Gentleman rim.

Specialized stem, Cinelli deep drop bars, Campy brake levers, SunTour bar end shifters.

Next time... cleaning it up and making it "mine!"  Hint - I didn't keep all the parts that it came with.

Re-visiting my Centurion Professional

Well, it's well into 2015, and I've only posted a bit about the proposed changes on the C&O Canal.  To try to get back into the swing of things here, I thought I'd re-visit a past post about one of my bikes, specifically my 1978 Centurion Professional.  You can read my first post about it here:

One of My Favorite Bikes

Now, over the years I have tried to learn as much as I can about this bike, and the brand in general.  There's not a huge amount of concrete information out there, sadly, but I have managed to piece together some things from various sources, notably a thread on Bike Forums:

Centurion Serial Number Database

Among the things I've learned...

Apparently, the Centurion brand started out as an early effort by Raleigh to have some of their lower end 10 speeds built in Japan, specifically the Grand Prix model.

Mitchell Weiner was a California bicycle sales agent. In 1969, he got involved in a project to help Raleigh Industries of America import a Japenese copy of the Raleigh Grand Prix. The corporate parent, TI-Raleigh, nixed the plan, and Weiner was stuck with 2,000 bicycles painted in Raleigh Grand Prix colors, including the pin stripes. So he stuck Centurion labels on the bicycles, and sold them at a profit. This lead to the formation of Western States Imports, which imported Japanese bicycles and sold them to dealers at lower wholesale prices than comparable Raleighs or Schwinns.

Berto, Frank (2012). The Dancing Chain, 4th ed., San Francisco: Cycle Publishing/Van der Plas Publications

 I also learned that the first version of the Professional model was made by Acer Mex, better known for the Windsor brand in the US.  In fact, the early Centurion Professionals were essentially Windsor Professionals with different decals.  Like the Windsors, they were more or less a "knock off" of a Cinelli, complete with Columbus tubing and Campagnolo components, both from Italy. A nice example of that can be seen here:

http://cinellionly.blogspot.com/2015/01/centurion.html

Sometime around 1977, production of the Professional moved to Japan, and the bikes changed significantly. The frame tubing was now from Tange, and components were a mix of Sugino, SunTour, SR and DiaCompe. This is the version I own, and it's a beauty.  Until recently though, the only information I had about the model was a pdf file from the author of the Centurion page on Sheldon Brown's site:

http://sheldonbrown.com/centurion/index.html

Then a few months ago, a fellow on the Classic Rendezvous list posted a for sale listing for an early Centurion brochure.  After looking at a scan of a page or two, I knew that contrary to his thought that it was from 1975 or 76, it was most likely a 1977-78 brochure, as the photos and specifications were an exact match for mine!  Needless to say, I bought it on the spot.

It's great to finally have some official company documentation on the bike, especially since such info seems to be pretty scarce for the brand.  There are only a few catalog scans out there online, including this from 1979 on Velobase and this from 1984 on Sheldon Brown's site.

The picture at the top of this post is the 1977-78 cover, featuring "my" Professional.  Below is the specification page.  The remainder of the pages can be seen on my Flickr site:

Centurion Catalog 1977-78

And photos of my bike are here:

1978 Centurion Professional

If you have more to add to the Centurion story, please comment below.  You could also join my Yahoo group dedicated to the brand:  Centurion Bicycle Fans.

One of my favorite bikes...

Hey Gang!

I haven't written much lately, but a recent "side discussion" with some members of the BOB (Bridgestone Owners Bunch) list has inspired me to write a bit about one of my many bikes. Oddly enough, it's not a Bridgestone, but if you look at the info on the BOB list you'll see it's not really just about Bridgestones.

Anyway, a member of that list (and coincidentally, a member of my Yahoo group, dedicated to older Miyata, Specialized, and similar touring bikes) started a conversation among several of us who have or have expressed interest in old Centurion road bikes. I'm fortunate to be the owner of a 1978 Centurion Professional, a bike that just isn't all that common... in fact, I've never seen another in person, and have only heard of a few other owners through the internet. Centurion was a brand created by Western States Importers, back in the late 60s/early 70s. They weren't truly a manufacturer... there was never a Centurion factory, as there was a Miyata, Bridgestone, or Fuji factory. Rather, the bikes were designed by WSI in the US, and the construction was contracted out with first Japanese and later Taiwanese factories. More detail on the company and bikes can be found at http://www.sheldonbrown.com/centurion/index.html, an excellent article by Ashley Wright on the late Sheldon Brown's website.

My Centurion came to me through the Community Cycling Center, in Portland, Oregon, where I worked for about a year and a half. The shop took in donated bikes, and some of those bikes came to us through other shops in the city. One day the Bike Gallery truck pulled up, and as I was helping unload a pile of Huffys and Magnas (low end, discount store bikes), I noticed what looked like a nice, striking orange road bike all the way at the front of the truck. I said to the Bike Gallery guy "That orange bike looks kinda nice!" and he said "If it was my size, it never would have made it on the truck." To which I replied... "It looks like it might be my size!"

I pulled it off the truck and was immediately taken with it. I'd mostly seen low end Centurions at this point, and certainly never a high end one from this early in their production. It was clearly well made and really, really pretty. Among its features are a gorgeous pearlescent orange paint, applied over a fully chromed frame and fork, built with lugs and other fittings that look remarkably like a Cinelli (high end Italian road bike) of the era. It came to our shop in beautiful condition, and I was sorely tempted to negotiate with the shop to buy it. It didn't help that one of my co-workers kept walking by me saying "That orange bike sure looks nice.... and it's your size...."

By the end of my work day, I had to give it a try, so I pumped up the tires and took it for a quick spin around the block. I was hooked! Back to the shop for a little negotiation with the manager (it helped that I was assistant manager at the time), and the bike was mine for a more than reasonable price. A little work on a few things, and a set of pedals, and it was ready to ride. And what a ride! Fast and nimble, and just stiff enough to feel like you get good acceleration and power when sprinting or climbing. And did I mention pretty? Definitely one of the most visually striking of my many bikes.

For the bike geeks in the group, here are some specs...

The frame is built of Tange double butted Champion cro-moly tubing with "fastback" seatstays and fully sloping fork crown, along with long point lugs with round cutouts, very much like a Cinelli, as I said. The components are high end Japanese parts of the era, with bars and stem and seat post from the SR Royal series. The crankset is a Sugino Mighty Custom with drilled out chain rings and milled arms. Brakes are early DiaCompe GranCompes, and the derailleurs and shifters are the first version of the great SunTour Cyclone series. The hubs are Sansin Pro-Am model, which were laced to a set of Mavic Module E rims, one of the few parts that I'm sure were not original. According to catalog info provided by Ashley Wright, the bike originally came with Araya "tubular" rims, but those were obviously replaced by an earlier owner. Also missing from the original parts were the SunTour Winner freewheel and the pedals, which would have been MKS UR-K Customs. I've made reasonable substitutions along the way, but the bike isn't 100% original, and I'm okay with that.

I've tried to get a Centurion Yahoo group off the ground, but it's suffered from a remarkable lack of activity. If you're curious it can be found here:

http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/centurionbicycles/?yguid=208457705

And a few more photos of my bike can be found at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43828356@N00/sets/72157604257636170/with/383372542/