Edinburgh Bike Contour 400 - Klunkster!

[sparkybhp]

Hi all, just picked this up today from a guy clearing out his garage. A google search doesn’t yield much info, does anyone know anything about these?
This is a 26” wheeled mtb which would have had a full Acera group originally, size is medium 18”/21.5” seat tube/top tube.
It’s Reynolds cr-mo tubing (which is very thin) and the bike weighs 12kg as you see it.
The paint job is really nice - like a pastel blue/purple with loads of metallic which pops in the sun.
Not sure which direction to go with this yet but some more info on these bikes/this company would be great.
Thanks.

 

[rwm1962]

I think that's Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative. They used to do their own brand bikes. I had one of their MTB's, a Cuillin Sport in the early 2000's until a few years back. Canny for the price.

 

[sparkybhp]

Ok cool, thanks for the info. It was only a cheapie via Gumtree but looks like it could be a pretty decent ride with a bit of tlc.
I’ll crack on with a strip and clean and see where I go from there.

 

[velomaniac]

There were five contours I the range, the 100 cheapo hi-ten, the 200 with better spec and chromo seat tube and fork, the 300 which I had from new from the original shop with chromo main tubes and fork with acera, freehub, cantibrakes and gripshift all for £200 which was fantastic vfm at the time. Then there was the 400 you have that was full chromo and finally the 500 which may have had xt level kit.
Edinburgh Bikes did not build the frames but bought them in and built them up to generally very good value for money spec. I was told the frames were built by the Falcon cycles group for the era your bike is from.
Tourers from the later revolution bikes period were rebadged and specced Dawes tourers.
Edinburgh bikes were one of the first to have a shop brand, in the 1970's they started to sell own brand tourers.
Nowadays I no longer rate Edinburgh Bike, they have become bigger and feel like just another high street and Internet chain like Evans or wiggle. The late 20th early 21st century was their heyday.

 

[sparkybhp]

@velomaniac, thanks so much for the info above - really interesting stuff. Like I say, I hadn’t heard of them before - but could tell that the bike is just a cut above the usual store bought stuff of the time. I’ve given the bike a clean and will be starting to strip it down this weekend probably.
My intentions for this are to build a comfortable ‘cruiser/klunker’ type of bike with swept back bars, sprung leather saddle and possibly 1x drivetrain, I’m thinking a front rack too. I was going to do this type of thing on my Muddy Fox courier comp, but I think this bike will be more suitable..
Looking forward to getting stuck in to this one!

 

[sparkybhp]

Slowly making progress on this, the saddle is a replica Brooks B33 off fleabay and the bars and tyres are from the spares pile. I have some matching leather bar grips to go on too, just need to decide on the drivetrain now.
Hopefully I’ll be welding some tabs on the forks and making a front rack for it this weekend - I picked up some steel today which should do.

 

[sparkybhp]

Made up the rack and painted it today while the weather was ok. Started assembling some components on to the bike as well. Went with a mega 9 LX chain set off a bike i broke for spares, converted it to 1x (the middle chainring was completely worn out). STX rc rear mech which I had and some servo wave levers, also from my spares box.
Just got the v-brakes to mount and then cables and we’re good to go.

 

[sparkybhp]

Bam! All done, funky looking thing and rides sweet. A short ride into town to collect a few groceries confirms that having a rack is way better than carrying a heavy rucksack!
I made the basket from part of an old shopping trolley and the rack from steel chairlegs off an old school chair.
... now I need to build another bike just like it as the wife says she wants one!

 

[moonlite]

Perfect urban runabout!

 

[sparkybhp]

Perfect urban runabout!

Cheers! The wife certainly thinks so - it’s now ‘hers’! I’m taken with it too and plan to build something similar with my 1988 Cannondale SM500 (collecting from the powder coaters today)..