I find this whole topic somewhat strange on the grounds of information I received directly from the OTC (Olympic Training Center) at the time the True Temper bicycles were being manufactured. I guess my first question would be: Are we discussing early LUGGED True Temper Serotta frames or are we discussing the "Colorado Concept" style tubing?
I attended a USCF Mechanic's Clinic in Colorado Springs back in 1988 or so. EVERY team bicycle hanging, leaning, standing out in the Mechanic's service area was a Team 7-11 (Serotta built?) Huffy. I believe some had Colorado Concept tubing but I may be wrong.
Long story short, the entire training staff at the USCF beat it into our heads that "steel is real" thus talking up these bicycles. Even Master framebuilder Koichi Yamaguchi was using True Temper at the time. Never heard anything about breakage during my stay there. If you check out Mr. Yamaguchi's website right now, it will show that True Temper is still an option for tubing.
Never owned a 7-11 True Temper bicycle. But I did have a True Temper Crest Team bicycle with Colorado tubing (which I sold.) I have another True Temper Crest Team bicycle (lugged) and when I called Serotta to try to verify the date of manufacture, even they were confused.
Ted Baer
98 degrees yesterday in
Palo Alto, CA USA
From: edvintage63@aol.com <edvintage63@aol.com> Subject: [CR] 7-Eleven Huffys - resend (Ed Granger) To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Date: Saturday, August 29, 2009, 7:20 AM
Sorry for the repeat - apparently the original fell victim to some bad formatting ...
I may have overstated the connection between the problems with the True Temper tubing and riders seeking alternative frames in my previous post on the 7-Eleven team bikes. However, those problems are pretty well established: Ben Serotta describes multiple frame failures, and Ron Keifel relates an incident in Italy where he finished a descent with his frame barely in one piece. There's more in the original article here:
http://www.roadbikeaction.com/
Ed Granger Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA __________________________________________________________________
"So I too sought to get to the bottom of this, and asked Roger Young, who ro de on the track and on the road for 7-11. Here is his response regarding the construction of the Murray and Huffy bikes: ******************* "We never had trouble with the True Temper tubing, though we did find some experimental designs did not endure well, but with corrections we never had problems in competition and no one had a mishap that caused any injury. I did ride the bikes and never had any trouble at all myself." ************** Stephan Andranian Costa Mesa, California USA"