Value/Ride Discussion: Serotta Huffy Team 7-Eleven

[mtechnica]

Old steel racing bikes ride pretty similarly IMHO, I don't think there would be any surprises with this one. It would be worth it if you bought it and took it to Eroica, but if you have newer bikes, I think you might have to be honest about how often you'd be reaching for the vintage ride.

[mhespenheide]

Originally Posted by Spaghetti Legs

I love me some 80's and 90's steel racers!

All I'm seeing here is a golden opportunity to build a set of racks to add a second tier and therefore double the number of bikes you can store.

[parris]

Something that you want to be aware of with the pictured bicycle is that it looks like the bottom of the number hanger is broken off. I don't know if that's a deal killer or not though.

[rustychisel]

Originally Posted by mtechnica

Old steel racing bikes ride pretty similarly IMHO, I don't think there would be any surprises with this one. It would be worth it if you bought it and took it to Eroica, but if you have newer bikes, I think you might have to be honest about how often you'd be reaching for the vintage ride.

Nope, think I disagree.

You can never tell until you've ridden it and decided... does it speak to you? I have two bikes I will never sell; one steel, the other aluminium. Many others have been moved on because they just didn't have the indefinable 'something'.

As an aside: before the time of factory wheels it was possible to tune a race bike for effect and performance by choice of components (eg tyres, saddle, crank length) and equally importantly, wheel characteristics. A dull unresponsive wheelset can sometimes be livened up by tuning the spoke tension, making the wheels more responsive...

But, but, but, if the frames not doing it for you then walk away.

[Peter P.]

I can understand buying it for wall art if you have the money.

But if you're going to buy it to ride, you either keep it for those L'Eroica events or convert it to modern components. Done so as the latter, that would be quite the conversation piece on group rides-pure class.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

The True Temper Serotta/Huffy's didn't have the best reputation for reliability. I would assume if this frame made it this far and hasn't cracked you're probably fine, but seen more than a couple of these as nothing more than wall art.

Hampsten had that Landshark for the Giro for a reason.

Ben Serotta-

Around this time we also started getting pressure to build the bikes lighter. Lighter than we wanted, actually, and we didn’t have the backbone to push back. Between the team’s prodding and True Temper’s insistence on reliability, we started using thinner wall tubes, and it didn’t work out. To this day I still remember getting the first call about a broken frame. By the end of the spring campaign we probably had ten broken frames, but it might as well have been a hundred. It was such a shock because we had never seen failures like that before. True Temper was very responsible and wanted to learn what the cause was so they could learn from it. For the Tour de France we built new frames with heavier tubing, but by the end of the season the relationship was pretty damaged.

https://roadbikeaction.com/the-real-...en-team-bikes/

[sipmeister]

This one is a treat to ride.

[parris]

^ STILL some of the coolest lug work out there!

[19wisconsin64]

It's a challenge to trace the ownership history of these bikes. In the past I owned Bob Roll's team issue bike...it was heavy, ridden many thousands of miles, and I sold it for what I bought it for...somewhere north of a thousand bucks (!) when there was a lull in the prices for these historic bikes in the 00's.

It wasn't my size, so I never rode it, just had it sitting in the apartment for a few years. Must have researched the bicycle for months before buying it.

There were issues with some of the frames and in a discussion with a former team rider who rode those bikes on tour, it was clear it was a huge issue, so much so that they had to switch frames.

All of the modern Serotta bicycles I have had were all truly excellent riding bikes, and I have never had one issue with any of them.

[ceya]

Originally Posted by fiamme red

Bunki Bankaitis-Davis lived in Boulder and she passed away recently. I wonder if this is her bike.

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/for...is-dies-at-63/

Wow she was a staple in the female ranks during the late 80s and 90s.

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . replicas of these bikes for public sale? Or is a bike with this paint scheme by definition a "team" bike?

BBD

[tv_vt]

This bike is worth way more than what the bidding is at right now. That's all I've got to say.