The Mundial gruppo was Ofmega's cheaper and more robust version of their brilliant Mistral range. The groupset was designed for use on tourers, early mountain bikes and BMXs. Having said that, they were also a good-looking, cheap and steady groupset that were used on mid-range road bikes.
The derailleurs are cheap knock-offs of their own Mistral range; missing some of the bling and charm of the original and seem to have only come in black. They were deliberately designed to be simpler and less likely to get clogged up, which is why the lower spring bolt is hidden under the bottom knuckle. Interestingly, there doesn't seem to have been a front dérailleur, with most groupset coming with either the Mistral or Premier mech'.
Unlike Mistral headsets and hubs, which are rare enough, the Mundial versions are very scarce. It may be that fewer of them survived or that they weren't kept, as they were seen as not that good.
The cranks are still beautiful but not as crisp as those for the Mistral range. They did come in Ofmega's stock anodising range (red, blue, gold and black), as well as the standard plain aluminium. There were single speed, smaller BMX versions, which were popular and, again, came in the stock anodised colours. All of the coloured sets are seriously rare, with only one or two red or blue BMX cranksets or a gold road-bike crankset turning up a year. The holes on the inner chainrings (and all of the BMX chainrings) are threaded to take the chainring bolts. To single-speed a smaller chainring, you will need to find BMX chainring bolts or put spacers on the standard ones (on the outside).
Like most Ofmega groupsets, they can commonly be identified before you open the box by its colour. Mundial boxes are often a mid-range blue, with a photograph of the component on the cover. However, sometimes, they turn up in Mistral boxes, which are black and gold.
|
