Whatever happened to the Ottrott CST

[zap]

Anyone know if any Ottrott CST's were built and sold to end users?

Why did Serotta stop building MTB's?

[Serotta PETE]

If I recall from what they published - -it had to do with what folks were buying and where Ben and the team thought their efforts would best be plaed to focus on serving the majority of their current and future customers.

At one time, Serotta in Europe was more associated with mountain bikes and not road bikes. When I would be there on business and say I had a Serotta, folks would assume it was a mountain bike.

In the US many folks did not even know Serotta was big into mountain bikes. I still have a hard tail Serotta and really love it. Unfortunately it would now be considered old technology.

Like most businesses, there is always a limit to the amount of capital investments that can be made, the amount that can be spent on reseach, development, marketing, and most important the size of a skilled staff that still allows individual customer focus.

Considering all these items, I would guess these are the reasons that Serotta chose to primarily focus on road frames at this time.

Too often companies try to be all things to all markets/customers and most of the time they are less than perfect in such an execution.

I am very biased, but I think that Serotta was correct in focusing where they did and executing very well in the product and customer satisfaction areas.

I will get off my soap box and get on the beer keg now

Pete

[Tony Edwards]

Well put, Pete!

I'll also observe that the whole MTB market, particularly on the high end where Serotta lives, is pretty much entirely focused on FS bikes. Getting into that business would require licensing an existing rear-end design and building around it, or, even more onerously, designing one. That kind of R&D probably couldn't be economically justified for the relatively small number of bikes they'd sell.

FWIW, I love my Serotta ATi mountain bike, and think that taken as a whole it's a more exceptional bike than my VaMoots road bike. I don't think, even after all these years, that there's a hardtail I'd trade it for, even-up.

As for the Ottrott CST, I have never heard of the project, but I think all-ti frames are the way to go for hardtails. I see CF as too much of a potential liability on the trail, in that every CF tube is just another frame member that might explode into shards if it hits a big rock the wrong way. It seems to me this outweighs any foreseeable benefit in terms of the ride.

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . I know Serotta doesn’t have any MTB’s in their catalog, but will they still build them to order?

BBDave

Last I saw, Yes. But you'll have to wait for them.

(People order them, the frames show up at my local shop...I haven't heard that they stopped building them.) I believe there was an issue there for a while with a change in manufacturing, but I think they have that hammered out now. Serotta James????

FS mountain bikes do cure many rider errors, however a hard tail teaches you how to pick your line, takes less maintenance, and is generally lighter to pound up the hills. In my opinion, full suspension bikes may be better bikes (they will go over or through anything), but they create less skilled riders.

As far as carbon mountain bikes go, I think they're usually over engineered enough that they're not going to have any higher rate of failure on the trail than any other material. I've seen more failed aluminum mountain bikes come off the trails here in Michigan than Carbon. (I'm not fond of them, but Treks go forever).

And a Serotta Ti hardtail is a beautiful mountain bike. It is on the list I'm looking at when I go custom...that and a Titus racer X...but that's another story.