Did Tange Prestige have rifled steering tubes?

[Lewis Moon]

I bought a 1986(ish) Medici Pro Strada that has Joe Bell paint and Tange Prestige stickers. It also has a rifled steering tube. Is that correct?

[David Kirk]

As I recall they did offer a spiral rifled steerer but it wasn't very common. The Columbus was much easier to come by.

dave

[jamesdak]

Well... you made me curious. So I pulled out both of my Prestige bikes, yanked the front wheels, and looked up into the steerer.

First is the prototype PDG Paramount. Supposed to be Prestige OS. It has a unicrown fork with a huge opening on the bottom. I can clearly see all the way up the bottom of the stem and see no rifling.



The Davidson Impulse is also DB Prestige but with a sloping crown fork. Very small opening in the bottom and hard to see inside. But I see ridges that aren't spiral like rifling but perpendicular to the tube. I used a Q tip to feel and there's certainly raised ridges inside it seems. Maybe tomorrow in daylight I can see better and tell for certain. Even with my reading glasses I had trouble really seeing anything.




Oh and I wish you hadn't prompted me to do this. Now that I've seen how dirty it is up in the steerer tubes I'll be pulling out all the bikes to clean up in there this winter.

[Veloo]

Was that similar to Miyata's splined triple butted tubing?

[dvs cycles]

The only rifled tubing I remember is that of my 1987 Pinarello Montello with Columbus SLX tubing including the steerer tube.

[jamesdak]

Originally Posted by dvs cycles

The only rifled tubing I remember is that of my 1987 Pinarello Montello with Columbus SLX tubing including the steerer tube.

Pretty common for the various Columbus tube sets to include even SL.

[jamesdak]

Ok, found my copy of a 1988 Tange Catalog. It appears they do have spiral reinforcements in the steerer.

[Lewis Moon]

Mine looks to be spiral, at least at a low angle. I'll take a pic when I have better light.

[GParkes]

Originally Posted by dvs cycles

The only rifled tubing I remember is that of my 1987 Pinarello Montello with Columbus SLX tubing including the steerer tube.

The Vitus TXO tubeset was splined, but not rifled. You could rotate the tube prior to mitering to tweak stiffness. When the splines were oriented at 12/3/6/9 o'clock, they gave more vertical stiffness (in theory), and if rotated to have the splines to "1.5, 4.5, 7.5 and 10.5" the splines would offer general stiffness torsionally (in theory). Very nice tubesets. I built two frames out of it back in mid-90's.

GP

[Mark McM]

My 1996 Ritchey Logic, made with Logic tubing (made for Ritchey by Tange) uses spiral ridges in the bottom portion of the steerer tube.

[unterhausen]

We just had a discussion about this on a framebuilding forum for some reason. Apparently Tange, Ishiwata and possibly Vitus had rifled steer tubes.

I still involuntarily laugh when I buy a columbus steer tube and find out it's rifled.