Insider Rides looks at the bikes that we ride, the bikes that industry insiders ride, that racers ride, and everyday folk ride. This instalment is graced by a bike with a history and a backstory that adds more glory to its already pedigreed name. We present Kev’s very special Serotta CSI. 

53/39 because fuck your kness

A Gratis

I’ve never won a scratcher and never won at cards. Some might argue I’m not even winning at life, but that would be their problem. Luck has never found me through the typical channels it finds most. Bicycles, however, seem to hone in and follow me home more readily than an emaciated stray. Sometimes, those strays turn out to be thoroughbreds.

Details

Flashback to ’99 and picture a basic bike shop on a less than busy day. Wrenches turning, classic rock bouncing off walls, the banter reaching record lows and beers stashed out of sight behind the bottles of Simple Green. Instinctively, I cast an eye toward the door as the telltale bell alerts us to an incoming customer who is dragging a hybrid of sorts across the carpet. It necessitated being dragged because the owner had smashed into the back of a Jeep at a fair clip, probably texting. The fork was so toasted and bent so far backwards the front wheel was sitting where the bottle cage should have been. The man was after an insurance quote which my boss handled and since I was an opinionated brat and had no interest in anything with tyres narrower than 2.1 (a decent size back then) I returned to the Santa Cruz Heckler I was building.

Couldn’t get a 25th anniversary decal when it was repainted

Weeks passed and this bike was still in the back of the shop, broken. A friend had ordered a Santa Cruz Roadster and suggested I look into a road bike myself for cross training. I replied with a typically vitriolic response concerning my thoughts on the ‘T’ word, to which he rhetorically asked how I might feel slinging an 8kg bike around at 80kmh down the backside of the Santa Cruz mountains to Capitola beach, and margaritas. I reluctantly conceded his point, well played Jeff. The following day I brought up the topic to my boss who said, “That Serotta back there is probably your size”, shortly before exiting stage left on his Harley. That was his subtle way of saying, make it go away; and my first thought was, “what’s a Serotta?”

It turned out to not be any Serotta, but the 25th anniversary Olympic edition CSI in Frost White which lay wounded in the back room. It still meant nothing to me until I pulled it out and had a closer look.

“The down tube and seat tube flare in size toward the bottom bracket––the heart of the frame––efficiently turning the axial and torsional forces generated by pedalling into forward motion. The top tube and down tube are ovalized where they meet the head tube to provide just the right amount of compliance, delivering handling and responsiveness. The eleven “designed to function” Colorado Concept tubes maximize the contribution of every gram of material while omitting any unnecessary weight.”

Not my words, but text taken from the 1996 catalogue as written by Ben Serotta himself. Sometimes you read bike reviews and have to wonder, what the hell are you on about. Despite the use of techy terms, even a luddite could appreciate what Ben was trying to convey. And after reading that bumph back in ’99, so did I.

Ti barrel adjusters

This particular CSI had been blasphemed by the previous owner, little wonder it opted for an early death a la SUV. It had been built as a flat bar hybrid running 8 speed Rapidfire shifters, bar ends and Shimano 600 (for our Millennial readers out there, 600 was the predecessor to the modern day 105). I stripped everything off (and a little gutted I didn’t hold onto that kit as they fetch top dollar on eBay these days) and put some proper Cinelli drops and a full 9 speed DuraAce groupo. I replaced the fork with a Profile Racing carbon jobbie which eventually got swapped for a Reynolds Ouzo Pro years later. The original fork and front wheel had taken much of the impact and in my naivety, I never thought to put it on a frame table (which didn’t matter because one wasn’t available) for further inspection. Instead, I took it up to speed on the main street and coasted downhill with no hands to see if it pulled left or right. It tracked dead straight and apart from a small ding under the top tube from the bar end strike, the bike was fine… and now safely in my possession. I did make an effort to contact the guy to see if he wanted to pick it up but I fear I may have dialled the wrong number.

Comfy, comfy bars

I never became a real roadie but still spent many happy hours on that bike. It carried me to work for a couple years when I lost my license, it carried me to the beach and margaritas with Jeff, and I hit 100kph on an epic descent. Founded in 1972, Serotta built bikes for the best. The 7-Eleven and Crest pro teams, Coors, Huffy, Murray, the 1984 and 1996 Olympic teams, and they purchased Fat City Cycles from Chris Chance in response to the growing demand for mountain bikes. But in 2013, they went bust. I don’t feel privileged, fortunate or even smug to have this bike in my collection. What I feel most of all, is honoured.

we were a cervelo dealer at the time