# mangalite tubing



## moschika (Feb 1, 2004)

where does mangalite tubing fall? is this a fancy name for gas-pipe or is it something a bit 'lighter weight'? who made it?


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## takmanjapan (Mar 24, 2004)

*My guess is Reynolds*

Mangalite.... My guess is that it is low end Reynolds tubing as they normally had Manganese -Molybdenum in their 501,531,753, and other racing tubesets. It may be comparable to lower end columbus sets too, like Aelle or Cromor.


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## rriddle3 (Aug 5, 2004)

Mangalite was the name of a steel alloy used by the Miyata bike company back in the '70's. Of the three classes (Standard, Good, and Best) it was their standard line.


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## bicyclerepairman (Mar 12, 2003)

*Tange had a model of tubing as I recall...*

the decal said "Tange" across the top over "2000" or "2001" in much larger type, with "magnalite" across the bottom of the decal. I can't remember the brand of bike I saw this on....I don't think it was a Miyata, although it may have been on a bike that had all other decals & labels removed.....I can't recall if I saw this on a mountain or road frame...


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## OES (Jan 23, 2002)

*Mangalite was one of Miyata's proprietary tubings. They*



bicyclerepairman said:


> the decal said "Tange" across the top over "2000" or "2001" in much larger type, with "magnalite" across the bottom of the decal. I can't remember the brand of bike I saw this on....I don't think it was a Miyata, although it may have been on a bike that had all other decals & labels removed.....I can't recall if I saw this on a mountain or road frame...


used it a lot for forks. It was similar to Reynolds 531 in having manganese in the alloy mix. They also made a regular cro-moly proprietary tubing that was very nice.

I have a mid-80s Miyata that's cro-mo frame and mangalite fork and it's lovely.

Miyata had a huge manufacturing operation, and built bikes for other companies as well. Univegas were actually built by Miyata, and some models were identical to Miyatas except for the badging. So you might have seen 'mangalite' on something other than an (official) Miyata


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## bicyclerepairman (Mar 12, 2003)

*I just saw an orange Miyata 912 (1981?)*

with a Tange "Champion" tubing decal. It had original Shimano 600 (arabesque) throughout, except for cranks & pedals.


OldEdScott said:


> used it a lot for forks. It was similar to Reynolds 531 in having manganese in the alloy mix. They also made a regular cro-moly proprietary tubing that was very nice.
> 
> I have a mid-80s Miyata that's cro-mo frame and mangalite fork and it's lovely.
> 
> Miyata had a huge manufacturing operation, and built bikes for other companies as well. Univegas were actually built by Miyata, and some models were identical to Miyatas except for the badging. So you might have seen 'mangalite' on something other than an (official) Miyata


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## Wade Kelly (Mar 24, 2004)

My 1980's Bianchi touring bike frame was made by Ishiwati of Japan for Bianchi. It has a decal on it *MANGY* inside a gold crest, maybe stands for Mangalite?

EDIT: >> Sorry, i rechecked the frame and it was made by ISHIWATA & the tubing is MAGNY, which much info can be found on the WEB.

Cheers,
-WK


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## Flopner (2 mo ago)

There are a lot of uses of different variations of "Mangalite" and that particular one can be considered "mystery" tubing.
Procycle of Quebec had a licence from Peugeot to produce bicycles in Canada. "mangalite" tubing was used by them for about 3 years. Take note that when a tubing manufacturer makes some tubes and you end up with a tubing decal on your frame they put their name on it so you know who made it. Reynolds does this, Columbus, Tange, Miyata, etc. 

The "mangalite" tubing decal says this " Built with Mangalite Double Butted Tubing, High Manganese Density" but it doesn't say who made it. 

If you look at the Miyata frame decal they spell their product differently, they spell it "Mangalight" and I also looked at other peugeot models from Canada from that time frame and didn't see any evidence of Procycle doing business with Miyata.

Procycle bought Rocky Mountain cycles in 2018 and adopted that name so I emailed them and exchanged a few emails with Mathieu and he said their records don't go back that far and he couldn't tell me the specifics on "Mangalite" tubing.

The 1983 Peugeot PB12 made by Procycle for the Canadian market has Reynolds 501 and the 1983 Peugeot PB14 made by Procycle in the same factory for the U.S. Market are almost identical bikes except the PB14 has "Mangalite" tubes.

If Mangalite was produced by some unknown tubing maker then everything I looked at says it has the exact same specs as Reynolds 501 Chromemoly-M.

Or it actually is 501 and for some reason lost in time they came up with that "mangalite" name.

I'd also point out that the "mangalite" decal on those Peugeots was kinda amateur looking like it was made at some local print shop.

This Mystery will probably never be sorted but if someone was painting one of those old "mangalite" peugeots and they put a 501 decal on it after, I wouldn't fault them.


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## Coolhand (Jul 28, 2002)

Moderators Note-

Google is going to bring new posters to old threads, no need to point out the age of the original post every time. New posters are a good thing.


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