Murray Serotta Question...

[Duane]

Hi folks,

Can anyone tell me about this bike's history?

http://www.duane.kennard.com/murrayserotta/

Were these bikes ever sold as replicas, or were they all team bikes?
Serial is 610**, so I'd guess it was built in '86; yes?

Thanks for any help,

Duane

[Serotta PETE]

Hi folks,

Can anyone tell me about this bike's history?

http://www.duane.kennard.com/murrayserotta/

Were these bikes ever sold as replicas, or were they all team bikes?
Serial is 610**, so I'd guess it was built in '86; yes?

Thanks for any help,

Duane

I have one from 84. It is made of SLX and they were offered in the catalog.

[Satellite]

Duane,

I also have one; Kenny Christoff's Team 7-11 Bike. Just the way he raced it.

I have viewed the photo's and I am not sure this is a true Team Murray. My Murray was made in 1985 and it was Kenny's replacement frame so it is a late 1985. In 1986 Serotta used the Huffy Decals.

Differences: My brake bridge has Murray Stamped into it. My HeadTube Badge has a "M" with the date below 1985. That head tube badge is something weird. My frame also has a top tube number hanger and a different seat tube clamp lug and a derailler braze-on oh and a chain hanger (your photo's show a chain hanger too). Also this bike has "S"bend Chain Stays where as my frame has strait chain stays. My fork has "M" stamped in the top of the crown with the diamond, spade, hearts, clubs on the lugs.

Hope this helps; you can also send the serial number to Serotta. They looked up my bike and confirmed it was a replacement for kenny Christoff.

Best Regards,

Satellite

BTW-the bike is made of columbus SLX tubing with a Cinelli Bottom Bracket.

[Keith A]

It certainly does have an interesting head tube badge...

[Duane]

It certainly does have an interesting head tube badge...

Yes; I suspect that was stuck there by a previous owner. I'm sure that as pictured, the bike's not in the condition it was in when built. It's been through a couple of hands before mine. BTW- it has the "S-Bend" chainstay only on the non-drive side(??)... No idea why it was built that way. It does ride nicely, and I was just curious about it.

Thanks all for your info!

Cheers,

Duane

[Keith A]

BTW- it has the "S-Bend" chainstay only on the non-drive side(??)... No idea why it was built that way.
Duane,

The S-Bend on one side was common for that era of bike. I don't recall all of the logic behind it, but I think heal clearance was one of the reasons for this. I know this topic has been discussed before on this forum, and you might be able to seach this out if you are really interested.

I did a quick search and this is what Smiley had to say about this (BTW, I see that you participated in this discussion as well about a year ago)...
OK , I'll recount the story told by Ben only if you prodded him to do so. It goes like this , he did it for Davis as his heel nicked the chain stay on one side , left probably and Davis reported back to Ben that he felt that the bike got stiffer when he sprinted , so Ben bent the drive side too and then Davis started to have good results and then all his teammates started to ask for their stays to be bent too. Thats how S bends came about purely by chance and not by design. Its a good story and its true and I believe the time frame was during the teams training for the Olympics so that would put the time line around 1986 .

[shiftyfixedgear]

The reason that the chainstays were not curved on the drive side is simple - the bend caused a lack of clearance in the small area directly in front of where the smallest freewheel (remember those ?) cog was located. The rear wheel would not slide in and out easily and the cog would rip the paint to shreads and /or gouge the dropout and chainstay joint. This occured even with a bevel on the inner chainstay face. An actual race-event rear wheel change is usually a somewhat brutal affair with the emphasis on speedily getting the old wheel out and slamming the new one in ASAP. There is no time for "finesse" - although it does take quite a bit of practice to do this smoothly while the rider is yelling at you and the race vehicles are passing within inches of your left side at a high rate of speed.

The drive-side clearance problem was neatly solved in the "s-bend" versions. The gentle curves didn't seem to cause heel clearance issues and they eliminated having to bend the dropout tang inwards directly in front of the axle slot.

Finally - the curve in the chainstays goes back to Harvey Nitz's "Murray"(Serotta built) track frames that were built @1983.