Any honest opinions on 80's Falcon frames?

Just bought an early 80's Falcon strada frame its 531, no forks though.. not sure if i have the technical know how to try and make it into a working bike. but gonna give it a good try

My falcon says that it's made with 18-23 tubing (mentions something about carbon...) - Late 80's. Cannae' find any info on this type of tubing on the net.

Any more info from you guys?

My Raleigh had a 18-23 sticker on

Vintage Falcons are great

I have just spent the last 10 months renovating my dad's 1960s Falcon San Remo. I have always loved it, but It lay rusting and unloved in his shed for years and it needed a lot of work. I took plenty of photos of the old hand painted decals then stripped it, had it rechromed and then resprayed. I made my own replacement decals from the photos I took and then had it clearcoated. Using parts I bought from ebay I then converted it to a singlespeed and love the result.

For more pics of the restoration look here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluestonestu/sets/

My falcon says that it's made with 18-23 tubing (mentions something about carbon...) - Late 80's. Cannae' find any info on this type of tubing on the net.

Any more info from you guys?

I think 18-23 wad tubing made by raleigh or at least used on a lot of their bikes.

From what I hear it's basically the equivalent to carbolite, better than gas pipe, and a way for the manufacturer to call their tubing something more exotic sounding than 'Hi-Tensile steel'. But not really up to reynolds standards.

Entry level but OK. Not shit, not good.

The apostrophe in the thread title is superfluous.

It's not superfluous it's just plain wrong.

Just bought Falcon step through (early-mid 80s but not quite sure) for a mini bike refurb project. Doesn't have Reynolds 531 tubing as far as I know but seems in pretty good nick for a nice, comfy bike to ride around town.

Any honest opinions?

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Looks complete and useable, newish wheels ? i wouldn't say no as a first project bike to play around with.

I would revise locking it up though. Undo the front wheel nuts, lift the bike, nick the front wheel from the black spesh behind which looks like a Q/R and someone will ride away with it.......

a nice, comfy bike to ride around town.

Looks ideal.

Would benefit from some mudguards and you might consider swapping the drops for moustache bars or similar.

Any honest opinions?

It wouldn't have been an especially expensive bike when new, so keep any work you do proportional. Ie it's not worth spending £s on a respray, bling wheels, etc.

I'd follow Scilly.Suffolk's advice.

The other things to note is the cranks are cottered cranks. If the BB runs smoothly, just leave the whole chainset alone. If it doesn't, then you're better off just replacing the cranks and BB with a square taper set. If you can't find a cheap enough new crankset, a good budget option is stripping and polishing an old 2nd hand road crankset.

If you're going to use it all year round, mudguards make cycling in the wet a hell of a lot less unpleasant. Also +1 for getting your position as comfy as possible, and some bars with a nice sweep for a more upright position is usually a good shout for cruising around town...

I have a 1978 Falcon Black Diamond I am restoring.

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