* Welded steel road bike featuring Ritchey dropouts with SN MT93115836 stamped on BB
* Seat tube is ovalized where it meets the BB
* Bike was previously spray painted, which I stripped and repainted
* Came with steel Spinner fork and Ritchey seatpost, post of which had “93” stamped somewhere on them (groupset is otherwise not original to the bike)
* SN does NOT match Ritchey or Bridgestone SN format produced around 1993
Any ideas?
WhenVioletsTurnGrey on
No idea. It’s a nice welded steel frame. That’s for sure. Appears to have performance geometry. Possibly custom made?
NxPat on
I started working for Bike Nashbar late 1994, stationed in Taiwan. We were changing over frame manufacturing from Merida to Dodsun & Fairly. My take on this is MT = Merida/Tange, 93/11 is 1993 November production, the rest is the production number of that frame design. Forest Green was a correct color and there was some backlash from consumers about the name, so Arni Nashbar switched to stickers that could easily be removed. I’ve got some of the original frame drawings from that time, pm me if you’re interested. Ritchy drops were pretty common in Taiwan around that time and for a few dollars extra you could add some cachet. Forks were manufactured by Lung-I sold by Spinner under a license agreement with Hiro Tange in Osaka. He would offer a steep discount on frame tubing if you took his forks as a package. At that time there was stiff competition from Columbus in Italy. It’s also what basically put Ishiwata steel out of business.
Edit: Around this time, these were sold as framesets with fork. Standard sizing was 52/54/56/58/62 C to C
3 Comments
Take a look at the linked frame. What I know:
* Welded steel road bike featuring Ritchey dropouts with SN MT93115836 stamped on BB
* Seat tube is ovalized where it meets the BB
* Bike was previously spray painted, which I stripped and repainted
* Came with steel Spinner fork and Ritchey seatpost, post of which had “93” stamped somewhere on them (groupset is otherwise not original to the bike)
* SN does NOT match Ritchey or Bridgestone SN format produced around 1993
Any ideas?
No idea. It’s a nice welded steel frame. That’s for sure. Appears to have performance geometry. Possibly custom made?
I started working for Bike Nashbar late 1994, stationed in Taiwan. We were changing over frame manufacturing from Merida to Dodsun & Fairly. My take on this is MT = Merida/Tange, 93/11 is 1993 November production, the rest is the production number of that frame design. Forest Green was a correct color and there was some backlash from consumers about the name, so Arni Nashbar switched to stickers that could easily be removed. I’ve got some of the original frame drawings from that time, pm me if you’re interested. Ritchy drops were pretty common in Taiwan around that time and for a few dollars extra you could add some cachet. Forks were manufactured by Lung-I sold by Spinner under a license agreement with Hiro Tange in Osaka. He would offer a steep discount on frame tubing if you took his forks as a package. At that time there was stiff competition from Columbus in Italy. It’s also what basically put Ishiwata steel out of business.
Edit: Around this time, these were sold as framesets with fork. Standard sizing was 52/54/56/58/62 C to C