Weight Weenies

I've picked up this frame:




anyone know anything about it? It has a sticker that says reynolds 853 butted frame and stays and it will be over 5 years old, but that's all I can tell you. The forks are SUNN 1" aluminium straight power forks, I don't think they came with the frame, any info on that too?

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Werent they made by Venom?

No idea, I was told it was made by "Paul Donahugh"

Cougar was originally the brand name for Terry Dolan's frames in Liverpool, the highly respected frame builder to Chris Boardman, Bradley Wiggins and a whole host of national, world and Olympic champions over the years. I can't remember when, but he did sell the brand name to Paul Donohue in either the late 90's or early 2000's.

Paul built the frames for the British based pro team Team Brite in the mid nineties (Wiggins, Olympic medallists Jonny Clay, Chris Newton et al) and whilst he doesn't have the same reputation as Terry Dolan I'm sure you've still got yourself a nice frame there.

@ Lemond75 .

Just want to add that yours may be some of the "later" Cougars after Terry Dolan sold his brand.
Earlier Cougars had the original Cougar steel fork with some Cougar heads engraved left and right into the forks crown.

No cougar heads in the fork crown, so fork is either not stock or the frame isn't a terry Dolan one.

Some more info:

takes a 27.2mm seatpost
takes a 130mm hub
no serial number on BB (should I be expecting one?)
has a Campagnolo Chorus headset and Cinelli criterium handle-bars, would these be stock?

Cougar's were originally built by Terry Dolan, but he'd gone by 93 or 94 and began using his own name for his bikes. His name disappeared off them too at this point.

Cougar trundled along for a few years, then i think most of the workforce left and set up Corrado which AFAIK only lasted a few years.
The name Cougar did reappear for a while on some fairly generic aluminium frames for a while in the early 2000s with paintjobs similar to the kodak/ Boardman ones of the early 90's.


I cant recall them making out of 853; 531 + 653 and some tig welded tri-frame which i can't remember what it was made from, and Ti as well as Columbus SLX.
I think most came with a chromed for with the cougar in the crown.

Mine was SLX in a ltd edition Barcelona olympics paint job (rwb) with chrome forks and half chrome rear.
if i can get some pics i will upload later; my friend still has the frame..

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I can confirm that the frame is magnetic, if that helps pin down a year. If they started making alloy in 2000 and 130mm was introduced in 1990s then this frame should be from then...