Clark Kent Bikes?

[chriswoody]

My sister in law rung up today saying she had a couple of bikes gathering dust in the cellar and would I like them? One of them is a run of the mill dutch style bike, however, the other is an old Clark Kent road bike. Now Clark Kent is not named after Super Man's alter ego, rather the surnames of the two founders, Pat Clark and Dean Kent. They were based in Denver Colorado and only traded for a few years from 1989 until the mid nineties.

Now this bike was purchased new by an old boyfriend of my wife, back in the late nineties and then he realised that an out and out road bike was not what he wanted, so he then sold it to my wife's sister. She rode it for a few years when she was a student and then popped it into the cellar, where it's resided ever since.

I briefly saw it once, but didn't take too much notice at the time, however I'm really intrigued now after a little research today. I won't see the bike until next week, so I have no photos, but after researching them I'm puzzled and intrigued by this rare beast.

According to the little info that's out there, Clark Kent bikes were either Titanium or Steel. However, of the two that are currently for sale in Germany, one is claimed to be aluminium and the other fails to mention the frame material, but has a fat downtube that would signify aluminium, further, my wife seems to think this one is also aluminium. They seemed to have a reputation for poor workmanship and cracked welds at one point as well, part of what brought them down. I'm really intrigued and wondered if any one here as any further info on these bikes? or has even heard of them?

I will pop up photos when I get my mitts on it and maybe answer some of these questions. I'm wondering as well, how I could tell the difference between titanium and aluminium? The bike is painted gloss black, so no metal on view and if there are no ovalised or fat tubes, then how would I tell the difference? The plan is to strip it down and then give it a good clean and spruce up, after that it all depends on it's size, condition etc.

 

[carpenter]

"Hold any genuine titanium metal object to a grinding wheel (even a little grindstone on a Dremel tool will do), and it gives off a shower of brilliant white sparks unlike any softer common metal. The sparks are tiny pieces of cut titanium--the friction of the grinder heats them till they burn white-hot. Hold a grindstone to the shackle of a "titanium" padlock from Master Lock, however, and you'll instead see the telltale fine, long, yellow sparks of high-carbon steel."

https://science.slashdot.org/story/07/12/25/1539252/how-to-tell-if-its-really-titanium

If you have a Dremel try it on the inside of the seat tube?

 

[carpenter]

Or use the Mohs scale: an iron nail will scratch Aluminium, but not Titanium (inside of seat tube again)

 

[chriswoody]

Thanks @carpenter apologies for not noticing your posts earlier. Thankfully I won't need to be attacking the frame with a dremel (That sounds painful!) I picked up the bike today and it passed the magnet test with flying colours, so steel after all.

The bike itself is a crazy old thing, I really can't make it out. I'm not sure if it was put together by Clark Kent like this or wether it was a frame put together by the bike shop. Essentially it's a road frame with large clearances and micro V brakes. The finishing kit is where it starts to get weird, it has 105 Flightdeck STI levers, then a Deore LX triple chainset and Deore LX rear derailleur matched to a 9 speed cassette. The front derailleur is a bottom pull Ultegra, however the cable comes from the top, so it comes down the seat tube, round a bolt and up to the derailleur! It's a real odd parts bin bike, but good parts bin. I can't find any info online at all about it. My sister in law says that nothing has been replaced and it's all original as far as she knows. The Large chainring has defiantly been removed and incorrectly replaced though.

Overall the condition is not great, but hey, it looks a good fun project none the less. The whole drivetrain is knackered and the STI's don't appear to have any effect on the derailleurs when clicked, so I'm not sure if it's cables or another issue. I've not looked to closely at the moment. Despite it's rarity it's not worth much, I'll just be doing it up to stop another good bike going to landfill. I'll post a restoration thread in the project builds section, but in the meantime if any one has any thoughts or insight feel free to chip in here.

 

[oolex]

Hi. Apologies for reviving an old thread, but I am new here and don't know how to DM. Feel free to remove this if not appropriate.

@chriswoody My father recently passed away and he had the same Clark Kent bike as yours albeit with a different spec. His was given to him by a German friend who bought it from Keha Sport and then took it with to South Africa. It was built with STX RC components and a flat bar. It has Ritchey rims and tyres and Clark Kent branded bar, stem and seatpost.

Did you find anything more about the frame? Do you know what the bracket on the left side seat stay is for? The copper collar on the seat tube of mine is stamped with the S/N HFID0158

 

[LittleWheelsandBig]

The bracket on the seatstay is almost certainly for a rim dynamo. It looks to be in the correct location for a rim dynamo. For quite a few years, Germany required dynamo lights fitted to new bikes, unless they were designed for racing.

The bolt near the BB on the OP’s bike originally would have had a pulley wheel fitted to it to redirect the front derailleur cable without adding friction.

 

[chriswoody]

Hi. Apologies for reviving an old thread, but I am new here and don't know how to DM. Feel free to remove this if not appropriate.

@chriswoody My father recently passed away and he had the same Clark Kent bike as yours albeit with a different spec. His was given to him by a German friend who bought it from Keha Sport and then took it with to South Africa. It was built with STX RC components and a flat bar. It has Ritchey rims and tyres and Clark Kent branded bar, stem and seatpost.

Did you find anything more about the frame? Do you know what the bracket on the left side seat stay is for? The copper collar on the seat tube of mine is stamped with the S/N HFID0158

No worries about reviving an old thread, it's great to see another Clark Kent and welcome to the forums.

So I did some digging around on some old threads on some German Cycling forums and discovered that my bike, is and isn't a Clark Kent. So my bike like yours as well, came from Keha Sports here in Hannover, the shop still trades today. Now they actually built our bikes from the ground up using steel frames sourced from the far east. The origin of the Clark Kent branding possibly comes from the fact that they originally did import Clark Kent bikes from the USA, then when the original American company went bankrupt, Keha sports either gained the rights to use the name, or just used it anyway. Information online seems pretty vague on the specifics and I've not personally spoke to anybody in the shop yet, though I've heard that there is no one there anyway who can shed light on the matter. They stopped producing bikes with the Clark Kent branding in the early noughties, though exact manufacturing dates are again hard to come by. My friend actually bought a really nice yellow drop bar racer, branded Clark Kent and originating from Keha Sports, though these seem a lot less common than the black hybrid frames we have.

You do see a number of them pop up for sale on our equivalent of Gumtree and the vast majority are the same black framed bike that we have and again they all have flat bars, which I feel mine was originally designed for. It seems that there was a high degree of bespoke purchasing going on.

We regards mine, it's sat languishing in a huge box of bits in my cellar because it's just not financially viable to repair. The problem I have is the Shimano 105 STI units, whilst working, have really rotten rubber grips. Replacements are like hens teeth and second hand prices for the 3x9 STI units are astronomical. Likewise, the chainset is worn out and again, they happen to be an unusual BCD that Shimano used for a while, so ultimately it's sat unloved. I might make another effort one day to start sorting it.

As for the bracket on the seat stay, @LittleWheelsandBig is correct, it's a bracket for a bottle dynamo.

 

[oolex]

Thank you so much for the reply.
Having had a look through everything I could find about Clark Kent, I thought the frame might have been a catalogue frame or something similar that they made for the German Market. It's interesting to me that Keha sports seems to have produced them and there's nothing on the English internet about them. The special part for me is that it was my father's bike, so I am not too worried about the frame's provenance in any case.
The parts on mine all seem to be in good condition except for a seized arm on the front V brake, which I purchased a replacement for, and rusted headset cups. I've also got some new cables, brake pads and other small parts ordered, so I can get it running smoothly. I'll be using it as a commuter and cruiser. Maybe I'll even get a bottle dynamo for it.