Afischer70

I've read through some older threads, but not finding much information on this bike. I am going to restore it and sell it on ebay. Would like to know some back ground on the Brand and what kind of price I could expect to get out of it once it's complete. I have several great pics of it, but I can't post them because I'm still too new here.

CO_Hoya 

markwesti

Nice looking bike Afischer looks like it will clean pretty well . Looks like a 56cm so that should help with the sell , is that a Prestige sticker on the fork ?
1983 SR "Racing" Pro-am

sloar 

seypat

The bike looks to be Maxima level with a different model decal. Solar beat me to it. A Maxima frame has sat on the Bay for over a year now. I saw a frame sit on a California CL for a month or 2 at $50.

sloar 

T-Mar

SR was a post boom Japanese brand, established for the 1976 model year by Marui, a Japanese trading company who had the bicycles manufactured by various sources, including Araya and Mikki. The frame of the subject bicycle is good grade Tange #2 . The derailleurs are SunTour Superbe from the very early 1980s but the frame itself looks more mid-1980s. The serial number may tell us the exact year and the manufacturer.

Lemond1985

SR bikes were the top of the line brand at my LBS in 1980. These days, no one even remembers them.

SpeedofLite 

Well, some do, but apparently in different ways and at different times.

Hard to believe T-Mar or CO-Hoya haven't mentioned this thread yet. 1980's SR
It was a fun rollercoaster read. Posts 50, 52, and 53 crack me up.

RobbieTunes

Tange Champion #2 tubing, very similar to the Centurion Comp TA, nice matching group, as SR went Suntour and Centurion spec'd Shimano.

PM sent if you don't feel like fixing it up.

gugie 

Triathalon

RobbieTunes

It's a new event; you get your hair done at the same time.

Afischer70

CO_hoya, how did you get my picture?

SpeedofLite 

Back in the late 70s - early 80s before bikes were designed for triathlon and everybody making a road bike wanted a foot in the door of this new sport, I thought I'd see a bike named Triath Elan.
Never happened as far as I know.

gugie 

I remember, I was there. The odd thing is that no one knew what a triathlon bike was. Kind of a made up genre, it was just a road racing bike. What was really funny is that, for most people, the best bike would have been longer wheelbase and easy to keep on track, yet a lot of the sales were quick criterium bikes. Since drafting was outlawed in triathlons, you didn't need a bike that was highly maneurvable in a tight pack of riders, you wanted something that you didn't have to pay much attention to and it would still go straight. When the Scott aero bars came out we called them elephant IUD's. The odds of crashing raised exponentially when those bars came in. I was a sales rep in the early 80's and would see more bikes in the repair area that looked like they had front end collisions with those bars than anything else.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Dave Scott rode an Eisentraut painted to look like whatever model of Ironman Centurion was pimping that year.

SurferRosa

Does the position of the bars and levers make it a triathlon bike?

SpeedofLite 

No. The "triathlon" bike was started, or at least popularized by Dan Empfield, either in conjunction with or soon following pioneering of the development of aerobars by Boone Lennon and arguably Pete Penseyres. These bars mounted on road bikes helped triathletes maintain a low, stretched-out, flat back aerodynamic position in a more comfortable manner. Empfield noted triathletes often rode on the tip of the saddle and were quad dominant with their pedal stroke. He reasoned a frame should be developed that had a steeper seat angle which would rotate the rider forward at the hip, help with maintaining a flat back on aero bars, and also maintain length of the hip flexors which ostensibly aided the bike-run transition and helped triathletes run faster immediately. Thus, Empfield's company Quintana Roo which was primarily known for wetsuits at the time, produced the Quintana Roo Superform that I think had a 90 degree seat tube angle. Somebody please correct me if you know differently. I don't have my collection of tri mags anymore and my memory isn't what it used to be. Anyway, all that stuff is on the web.

So, the tri bike evolved quickly into a frame design with a relatively standard 78 degree seat tube angle (or effective angle) that was built around a rider using aero bars. All other kinds of aerodynamic innovations followed. John Cobb became an advocate of the "Big Slam" position for some triathletes primarily based on body geometry and back flexibility. The "Big Slam" sent some racers back to a more relaxed 73 degree angle frame. Not sure where all of that stands anymore.

T-Mar

There's a big difference between bicycle that can be used in a triathlon, those marketed for triathlon and those specifically designed for triathlon. The subject bicycle fits into the second category.

You can use any type of bicycle for triathlons, with the exception of an e-bike. There are a lot of first timers that show up on ATBs, hybrids and anything they can dig out of the basement or garage. In fact it's a wise to ride what you have, until you get an appreciation of whether or not you what to pursue the sport. I advise not investing in a new bicycle until you have a season of triathlon experience.

Triathlon really didn't garner attention from the bicycle brands until the mid-1980s. Bicycles marketed specifically for triathlon started appearing circa 1983, after the 1982 Ironman television coverage of Julie Moss crawling across the finish line galvanized the nation. The marketers were quick to jump on the craze and respun their mid-level sports bicycles as triathlon bicycles. Traditionally this level had been the realm of club racers and avid but budget conscious cyclists. The bicycles themselves were virtually unchanged and many companies marketed them as race-triathlon bicycles, In the mid to late 1980s, any bicycle with high pressure, 700C tyres and mid range components such as Shimano 105, Shimano 600 or SunTour Cyclone was being marketed as suitable for triathlons. They checked the necessary boxes for a bicycle company aiming at a target market of a new sport comprised primarily of novices. They were performance oriented, relatively light and relatively inexpensive.

The definition of a triathlon bicycle underwent a radical change circa 1989 when Quinatana Roo designed a new, steep angled frame around the aero handlebars that were starting to become popular. The steeper seat angle (80 degrees versus a traditional 74), accompanied by a more forward saddle position allowed a low, aerodynamic position while preserving the critical angle between the torso and thighs. From this point on a triathlon bicycle would be distinct from the mid-range sports models that had previously been considered triathlon bicycles.

Scott had introduced the aerobar in 1987 but they didn't achieve wide spread popularity until 1989, when a clip-on version was introduced. Greg Lemond used them to win the Tour de France that year. Million watched the final stage, where Lemond overcome a deficit to win by 8 seconds. It was a time trial and his victory was largely attributed to the use of aerodynamic equipment, of which the aerobars played a large part. This provided instant credibility for aerobars and the clip-on versions were the favoured choice, as they were less expensive and could be used in conjunction with your normal bars, providing more hand postions and alleviating the need to remove your old bars, levers and tape and then re-assemble with new one piece aerobars.

Having said that in reponse to previous posts, I think SurferRosa'a original comment was intended as a facetious remark, based on the odd angle of the bars on the subject bicycle.

SpeedofLite 

All the stuff I removed was well stated!

Darn. I think you're right. It was too subtle for me without a smilie, or smirk or something.

Afischer70

I have a lot more pictures I would like to share but can't because I don't have 10 posts yet...? I also can't retrieve any messages for same reason. This really doesn't do me any good in getting information. Why would this be set up this way and is there a way around it? Can I request that the admin let me post more pics

seypat

If you've read through the old threads you are not going to find any other other info. I have a SR Semi Pro. SRs are nice riding bikes. There is one thread that is about 4 pages long. It mentions the models, but I don't remember the Triathlon mentioned.

sdn40

Go say "nice bike" 3 times in other threads. Is it that hard ? It's set up this way to stop the posting of spam. And maybe a bit to stop the one and done people wanting to know about a bike they want to flip and never come back. You've already been told it's a bike that's not well known, and goes for modest prices, therefore when you consider selling on ebay, shipping costs, along with the money you will have to stick in it, it's probably a losing proposition. If you're looking to snag a quick $200, it's just not there no matter how many pics you post

T-Mar

The additional pictures confirm the previously mentioned Tange Champion #2 tubeset and SunTour Superbe derailleurs. It also shows Superbe brakes and hubs, a Kashimax Aero saddle and Tange Levin headset. However, no serial number, which, for me, would be the most revealing piece of information.

Afischer70

No, it doesn't sound that hard at all, I just didn't know that's all it took. I thought I had to create 10 of my own separate posts. It's not explained very well. No need to be snippy about it. I had other pics to post of the components to see if I would be better to sell those separate from the bike . So, there were still more opinions and info I was looking for besides what was already given. Is that so hard?

SurferRosa

I'll be better next time, SpeedofLife!