Is there such an animal? I know very little about the Brand other than I saw their 2009 "Coeur d'Acier" online today and was immediately smitten...also noticed they are headquartered and claim to build their frames right upstate in Saratoga Springs NY.


Have they been around a while? Are there Vintage examples of their work? Seems like they are into high tech materials...

Ben Serotta has been building custom bicycles since the 70's. His reputation and the quality of his products is surpassed by no other American builder.


https://www.serotta.com/about/history.html

from the few I have seen and the even fewer I actually worked on I always thought they were very nice. I know this was not the real intent of this forum, but since we seem to be discussing bikes from the early '90s back I would say yes there is such a thing. I may be wrong but I do believe Mr Serrota was one of the fist builders to start doing things like curving the chainstays to make them stiffer as dropout spacing got wider. he also used a seattube that got larger at the BB somewhat like a Bianchi Superset 2 frame.

I remember that... and then Waterford got nuts with the concept in their PDG-branded MTBs...

I have nothing useful to add, but I remember the red/yellow fade Colorado from the 80s was dead sexy at the time. Hoping I can find one to fit me someday.

Americans tend to call everything that was built before this year as 'old' or even 'vintage.'
Have ridden one of Ben Serotta's first titanium tandems. Nice . . .

Waterford worked closely with True Temper to develop oversized tubing for road bikes in 1988, and one of the features of that and subsequent OS tubesets was the seat tube conical flare at the bottom bracket to provide additional lateral stiffness. The True Temper OS tubeset was introduced as an option on production Paramounts in 1989 and was called "Paramount with Paramount Tubing" in the 1989 catalog (Schwinn offered the Paramount in both the True Temper OS version and the standard tubing version using Columbus SLX in smaller frames and a mix of SL and SP in larger frames in 1989 and 1990).

I know Ben pioneered oval cross section tubing, but when did he start using seat tubes that flared at the BB shell?

by '87 for sure...
(anecdotal story: in '87 during a century I was drafting behind a guy with a Serotta, who was riding with a group of people with high $ italian steel. Couldn't help to notice the thing and in my ignorance I thought that there was something wrong with the bike and the guy might bite the dust... Next water/banana/orange stopover I asked him about it and he said that it was part of the design...)

Back in 1980, I tried my cow-orker's Serotta. It was a criterium bike. It was so nimble, I was scared out of my mind. Plus, I was used to riding 58cm bikes, and his was about 53cm, making it even more nimble.

You really should get moving with building your Miyata frame. It will might give you a ride comparable to that of a good Serotta.

Yeah, I was going to say - they've been around a long time. As a kid in the early 80's I always assumed they were Italian. At the time every shop in town was full of Italian frames - aside from the walls full of Mercians at the Boulder Spoke and that one 753 Raleigh the same shop had everything was Italian. Ciocc, Gianni Motta, Colnago, De Rosa, Gios, etc. And of course I assumed Serotta was Italian as can be, right? What could be more Italian sounding than Serotta? Guess not, huh? LOL

I think what attracted me most was the curved seatstays and the paint job. It just looks like something I could ride all day


I'm currently hunting for a set of 32 hole rims... Dura Ace or Mavic probably...but i'm open to suggestion. minus wheels i've got enough parts to slap it together but I want to plan out something nice for it.

I've always built my wheels using 36h Mavic Open Pros, but my latest wheelset uses 32h DT Swiss RR 1.1 rims. So far, I love 'em.

I've actually already got the hoops, Mavic MA 2's, I'm hunting for hubs

I'd been in Ben Serotta's shop in Saratoga Springs several times in 1974. At that time he'd built quite a few criterium frames that were pretty extreme. I remember seeing lots of vertical rear dropouts, steep angles, and high bottom brackets. The workmanship was beautiful, though.

Towards the end of the decade the preference for standard Italian style road bikes was making itself apparent and Serotta responded accordingly. Bottom brackets dropped, head and seat tube angles slackened, and, for a while, horizontal dropouts returned to fashion.

Serotta forum: https://www.serotta.com/forum/

Pretty good classifieds section, too, if you've got the Do Re Mi.

Its seems like Serotta adapted to the times and needs of the community versus holding onto to old/archaic philosophies. There aren't many builders who've done that.

Which tubes are you referring to?

Yes, Serotta does keep up with the times, somehow. I recently saw one of his latest products.

I wonder if he still makes his frames or if he contracts them out as so many do.

All of Ben's frames are still made in Saratoga Springs including his carbon models. In fact Serotta owns there own carbon manufacturing plant where they make there own tubes. Can't get much better QC than that

Good question. I found some info on his website:


There is a production facility in Poway, CA as well as Saratoga Springs.

Click 'factory tour' : https://serotta.com/about/factory.html
Click Carbon: https://serotta.com/about/production.html

The ONLY frame parts not made in house are some of the nuts and bolts that are used.

I'm glad to hear it. A craftsman becomes a manufacturer. The name still means something.

And that's an excellent website!

+1

+1 Yes, this is probably what impresses me most about Serotta.