> I have a 1979 and a 1980 and I'm pretty sure they were made in
> England. I always thought the Suntour drop-outs were the dead
> give-away for a Japanese made frame.
>
> George Allen
> Lexington, KY
I have a 1980 Worksop frame with the Suntour dropouts. The Suntour dropouts were perhaps the last truly great suntour innovation in the CR timeline. They have a 'wiggle' on the drive side so that that frame builders don't have to molest the seat stays in order to get chain/freewheel clearance on the drive side.
My bike is something like a Carlton Competition from 1980. It's orange with block letters. I saw another one listed on ebay recently and they came standard with all shimano-600 components. I got my frame direct from the U.K. and its weight and size (2100g, 24") suggests a reynolds 531-throughout frameset, even though it has a 'main tubes double butted' sticker on the seat tube.
- Don Gillies San Diego, cA, USA
P.S. i own(ed) copies of both the U.K. Competition and the Japan Competition forks. The U.K. competition has a real vagner lightweight crown that tapers inwards between the fork blades and the steering column (very light, maybe 90 grams). The Japan competition has a fork crown that's flat between the fork blades and the steerer, and it's much heavier (maybe 130 grams), and tange tubing:
http://www.ece.ubc.ca/
http://www.ece.ubc.ca/