I’m not sure if this is the proper forum to post my question so if it needs moved please do.
I recently purchased a used Quintana Roo 101 road bike. I have emailed QR looking for any info on the road bikes they made in the early 00’s and they have no information for me. All I can tell you is the frame is steel and painted orange with a kinesis carbon fork, full ultegra and velocity aero rims. Does anyone here know any info about these? I’d like to know some background of the bike such as type of steel used. From everything I have read QR made some mtb frames as well but for the most part they are a tri company using carbon, ti and aluminum.
thank you for your time.
pete
yep, you got it. most likely a mandaric-made frame. 853 sounds right, there may be something else thrown in there, i don’t remember.
that’s a pretty nice steel frame, i must say, and the idea with the paint was to go retro, sort of conjuring up the colnago molteni color from the 1970s.
Hi Pete…welcome to ST. The short answer to your question AFAIK is 853 tubing although I have a QR 101 identical to yours and I can find no tubing sticker anywhere on it.
Dan has posted on the forum before that the vast majority of the bikes that came from QR when he owned it were the “original” tri-bike…ie steep-angled (78-80), small-wheeled, forward geometry, (QR’s Private Reserve, Kilo, Superform, Zero Gravity, ZG USA, etc.) steel & aluminum bikes. He has also said that one of the great things about owning a small company was that he could make whatever he wanted to…in this case some road bikes or off-road tri-bikes.
In addition to the QR 101 & QR Monitor (both had 700c wheels if I’m not mistaken), Dan also produced the DeLuz, Borrego, QRoad, Latigo, & Palomar which had road geometry but with 650c wheels. He also made a bike called the Panamint. That Panamint was supposed to be an off-road Xterra-type bike that looked like a mountain bike but had a steeper seat angle than most mountain bikes. I’ve missed out twice on ebay trying to score a Panamint just to build up as a single speed/commuter bike. I forget which one it was but QR also made a road bike that looked like the QR 101 but that had the carbon gusset (see Redstone below) between the head tube/top tube/seat tube.
As Dan already said, Ves Mandaric made many of those early frames in addition to the QR Redstone pictured below. In fact the blurb below was written by Dan in a review of Yaqui bikes:
…Owner/builder Ves Mandaric is a Yugoslavian who fled his country right when things started getting dicey. Prior to that his bikes showed up under Russian – and other eastern bloc – national team, trade team, and Olympic riders. He and his family’s first new-world point of disembarcation was Eastern Canada. Discovering it was cold there, the Mandarics eventually (did the smart thing and) angled southward to San Diego. Mandaric has built for several companies, including QR, and if you own a steel QR road race bike – a #101, or a Palomar – Mandaric built the frame bottom to top. If you own a 1999 or earlier Private Reserve, Monitor, Redstone, or aluminum road race bike from QR, he most likely welded it…
Go to www.mandaric.com if you want to learn more about the guy who built your bike. Hope that helps.
In addition to the QR 101 & QR Monitor (both had 700c wheels if I’m not mistaken), Dan also produced the DeLuz, Borrego, QRoad, Latigo, & Palomar which had road geometry but with 650c wheels.
the de luz (i have two) was 700c, and a fabulous road bike. the current mandaric road bikes i now have (i think i have 4) are all more/less progeny of the de luz. but you’re not quite right about the monitor. it was a 650c road bike, built in aluminum. the palomar was the 650c version of the 101.
with the greatest respect for the kestrel 500sci, in my view the nicest 650c road race bike ever was the CAT I, and this was first built in i think 1987 or '88. it was built out of tange prestige tubing, with a wishbone rear, fillet brazed, built by robert stowe of phase 3 cycles, carrying the QR headbadge. liz downing bought a USCF racing license and did one bike race in her entire career. it was a 40km time trial, and she broke the then-women’s national 40k record by 90 seconds on a CAT I retrofitted for tri riding. 54:00. that was in 1990 as i recall.
***the current mandaric road bikes i now have (i think i have 4) are all more/less progeny of the de luz. but you’re not quite right about the monitor. it was a 650c road bike, built in aluminum. the palomar was the 650c version of the 101. ***
I stand corrected. I was close to being right but you know what they say about close…it only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades.
Which one was the road model that had the carbon gusset?
If you’re looking to sell a road bike that would fit someone (me) at about 6’3" with a slightly short torso, let me know. I’m on the east coast, which probably isn’t ideal in terms of trying out a bike before shipping it.
“If you’re looking to sell a road bike that would fit someone (me) at about 6’3” with a slightly short torso… I’m on the east coast, which probably isn’t ideal in terms of trying out a bike before shipping it."
i’ve got pieces of good news and one piece of bad news. good news: i’m 6’2" and evenly proportioned, and i ride my 60cm bikes with a 12cm stem. so, with a 13cm or 13.5cm stem they should fit you nicely. i’m selling three of them, all in great condition, one is campy 10sp record and two are 9sp dura ace. they’re easton scandium mandarics, built with some features i make him put in my bikes, and which you don’t know about so you wouldn’t ask him to put in your bikes (stuff he hates to do).
the bad news: i’m not shipping these bikes anywhere. you want them, you pick them up.
good news: that means you get to test ride them actually, for what i’m selling them for you could afford to fly here, ride them all, and take the one you like.
sound like i found myself a hell of a bike and for less than the price of a trek 1000. Thank for all the info. Does anyone have any idea of how many of the 101 frames were produced and m.s.r.p?
I may be mistaken but I believe MSRP was $1695 with Ultegra back in '98/'99. Don’t know how many were built but any QR road bike is a rare bird with the CAT 1 and Borrego probably being the rarest of all.
NICE! If only I could get into a wayback machine and get the legs I had back in '98
Seriously, I keep scouring ebay hoping to find one of those Kilo Private Reserves in black (very hard to find) or an orange Redstone in my size. There was a Borrego frame/fork a few months back and now I wished I would’ve pulled the trigger…
thanks for all the info everyone it takes care of the bike dork side of me. Now for the praise! Easily the best steel frame I have ever ridden. I’d put the pepsi challenge against any serotta or colnago steel(not me personally…just the frame)
actually, for what i’m selling them for you could afford to fly here, ride them all, and take the one you like.
