Werehatrack
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
A Lespo Topas landed in my lap this morning. I'd never heard a
whisper of the name before, but a quick search shows it's made by
Samchuly Bicycle in Korea. It's a low-end-ish front-squish mtb with a
mix of decent, so-so and ugh kit. Thinwall steel (probably cr-mo)
oval tubing frame, Shimano Altus rear der and shifters, C101 front der
and cranks, cheapie welded steel suspension fork, 8x3 shifting
(cassette rear wheel), and it looks like it had been swapped out to a
Kalloy seat post at some point unless that was OE...which I doubt.
The paint job is Adolescent Fantasy Red/Blue/Yellow Flame over silver,
and it has red bar ends and red sidewalls on the (dry-rot cracked but
not split) 26x2.1 knobbies. If those had been sound, I'd have been
really tempted to keep it for the novelty value of the red sidewalls.
It was described as a "tall man's bike" by the person who had it, but
the frame's got about a 20" top tube; maybe shorter. I'll most likely
do a quck rehab on it, slap on some city slicks, and pass it along to
a college student in need of a campus commuter.
As oddities go, it was not all that odd...but the abundance of
Stickers In A Language I Can't Read (but recognized as "probably
Korean") clearly marked it as a bike that hadn't arrive here via
mainstream commercial import channels.
--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.
whisper of the name before, but a quick search shows it's made by
Samchuly Bicycle in Korea. It's a low-end-ish front-squish mtb with a
mix of decent, so-so and ugh kit. Thinwall steel (probably cr-mo)
oval tubing frame, Shimano Altus rear der and shifters, C101 front der
and cranks, cheapie welded steel suspension fork, 8x3 shifting
(cassette rear wheel), and it looks like it had been swapped out to a
Kalloy seat post at some point unless that was OE...which I doubt.
The paint job is Adolescent Fantasy Red/Blue/Yellow Flame over silver,
and it has red bar ends and red sidewalls on the (dry-rot cracked but
not split) 26x2.1 knobbies. If those had been sound, I'd have been
really tempted to keep it for the novelty value of the red sidewalls.
It was described as a "tall man's bike" by the person who had it, but
the frame's got about a 20" top tube; maybe shorter. I'll most likely
do a quck rehab on it, slap on some city slicks, and pass it along to
a college student in need of a campus commuter.
As oddities go, it was not all that odd...but the abundance of
Stickers In A Language I Can't Read (but recognized as "probably
Korean") clearly marked it as a bike that hadn't arrive here via
mainstream commercial import channels.
--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.