Hey there,
I’m trying to identify a vintage (?) frame with a peculiar cable routing setup and after many hours of scrolling through frames and searching all possible combination of terms, I am now seeking your help!
The original rear derailleur routing seems to be around the seat tube and down the seat stays which I have not seen anywhere else. The bike has some old traces of “champion du monde” decals as well as Colnago-inspired ones but I’m not convinced either of them are original. The only engravings are the RGF bottom bracket shell, Gipiemme dropouts and a Tange headset. The bike was from a bike shop that builds up frames but they had no idea where this frame was from. Maybe someone knows something about this?
[https://imgur.com/a/i1qjqDa](https://imgur.com/a/i1qjqDa)
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Cheers 😀
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by lest1n
8 Comments
Any picture?
Could well be a cyclo-cross frame, according to the routing you described and the cantilevers that were supposed to be mounted.
Knowing your location and some of the standards on the bike would help. It’s a French bottom bracket shell, but I am guessing the threading is English since you are using a modern crankset. Looks like those shells fromRGF were used as far back as the 1950s by UK builders, and into the late 1970s with Canadian imports rebadged to seem more [Italian](https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vintage/285816-fiori-bikes.html).
Here is a [similar looking mystery bike](https://marksbikes.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/a-tale-of-two-bikes/)
Gazelle Mondial of some sort is my guess.
cable routing along the toptube and down the drive seat stay is/was pretty common for cyclocross bikes. this helped keep mud and dirt from mucking up the cables.
you have a pretty interesting frame, not many of the old cx bikes survived, they were races very hard and lived hard lives. i havent seen too many old lugged steel cx bikes
as for the frame, rfg was a french manufacture that made lugs, headsets, and other parts.
do you know the bb threading? that might help narrow down where it was made. you have a mix of french bb shell & maybe lugs, italian dropouts.
Seems like a crosser frame considering the Canti brake mounts and routing. Head tube seems pretty slack too. The world championship stickers on the seat stays should also help narrow down your search as well.
Thank you everyone for your help! Unfortunately, I won’t have access to my bike for a while so I can’t measure the bottom bracket width but using the Shimano BB-RS500 spec it will be between 68 and 70mm.
Thank you for cyclocross cable routing help, it has never occurred to me. It’s a very nice detail.
With regards to location, I bought the bike in the Netherlands so the Gazelle is a good shout.
Well I found that RGF means nothing beyond who manufactured the bottom bracket [http://www.classicrendezvous.com/France/parts/RGF.htm](http://www.classicrendezvous.com/France/parts/RGF.htm) (from another reddit thread)