Kobe - You accidentally ended up with MY Serotta, I'm pretty sure. PM me and I'll give you my contact info to send it to me.
You could be the nicest guy in the world, but I hate you now! There are very very few tall bikes that make other tall cyclists hate you. We usually end up with second tier stuff. But, that'd be one. With a factory head tube extension even! Nice. Was it custom? They had a horrible reputation of "normalizing" the custom geometry on tall bikes. They got burned one too many times with customs, as most customers didn't truly know what they wanted in a custom, and just compared everything to stock geometry. As much effort and education as they put in to Serotta custom sizing, they realized that with most tall cyclists, they didn't have a clue about how poorly their stock geometry bikes were fitting. So when they were delivered true custom builds, people didn't like them. They were too different from the poorly fitting crap they had previously. The other side of the coin is people that were livid when their custom bikes came back fudged to "normalize" the numbers, who truly expected their custom tall bikes. I remember one thread on the Serotta forum where a guy's titanium custom Serotta was a a real financial hardship purchase, but a lifetime gift to himself. He was never going to be able to afford a second custom bike in his lifetime. He was furious and devastated when Serotta "corrected" his custom geometry spec and "normalized" it. They refused to make it right. The fudging happened after the custom fit. He never signed off on it. Serotta took the custom data and fudged it back to split the difference. He wanted the bike with the true custom geometry and ended up, as they did with their tall builds, with a splitting of the difference.
Still most of us would love a TALL Serotta as most of us will NEVER ever have a custom bike built, even though we are the group that probably all should. Tall cyclists almost never understand what size/geometry we'd even want. We've spent a lifetime on the wrong size bikes, and usually don't have a proper frame of reference (which is EXACTLY what led Serotta into that practice of "normalizing" specs on BIG customs).
If we ever go for a ride together, you'd better not bring your Serotta. I'd leave you bound and tied over that bike. I guess you'd be safe in a large group ride. Unless it was a large group of TALL cyclists. Then probably only one of us would emerge at the end. "There can only be one." You've got to tell the story on how you found it, or your custom experience with them.
I'm pretty sure that since Kobe ended up with such an awesome TALL bike he pretty much needs to be banned from this site. It would only be fair and equitable. Anything else he looks at in this thread is secondary to what's in his garage already. I mean what man looks at porn and realizes he's wasting his time becasue his girlfriend/wife is way hotter, or more creative in their marital interactions? I mean really? That's what porn and bike porn are for, to view the unobtainable or the fantasy, while exploiting girls with failures as fathers. Bike porn is looking at BETTER bikes than you'll likely ever have. KOBE probably won't see many other bikes in his lifetime that would be "better" than his Serotta. More beautiful? Sure, any BIG Rivendell would have better paint and lug art, and the Joe Bell paint job. But an actual better riding steel bike. Please.
Zinn the tech editor at Velonews, and a cat that specializes in building BIG/TALL bikes and his thoughts on Serotta leaving his own game, and some comments on the innovative Colorado True Temper tubing specs:
http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/...uilding_299896
I love that piece because its a rare glimpse into the often catty and disingenuous narrative that dominates the cycling industry. When the mass market doesn't have a competitive product they try to poison the well with a false narrative to reduce the performance variance that leaves their product offerings as inferior. It happens a lot. It happened all the time with the disingenuous mocking of Cannondale as "Crack-n-fail" even though most of us haven't seen five Cannondale road frame failures with our own eyes. People forget the full assortment of Park Head tube straightening tools, frame realignment tools, and other such steel tubing repair equipment that shops had to keep on hand during the lightweight steel frame race era. Lightweight steel frames can crumple the downtube just riding through a pothole, or as recently seen in this C&V forum just from hitting a dirt road rut wrong. Aluminum frames were incomparably stronger, lighter, and stiffer, but the false narrative was, like Zinn suggests as with Serotta, just the envious false narrative. When a competing shop has Cannondale and you've been Schwinn/Paramount for years, you've got to say something to the customers. The paradigm changed, and the performance variance between some paradigm changing innovations in cycling leaves many good intentioned LBS out in the cold through no fault of their own. Of course they become caustic and disgruntled about it.
With Serotta the Colorado tubing bikes were great bikes. They were TIG welded and were stiffer and stronger than lugged steel bikes. If you only sold lugged steel bikes, you weren't going to like that. The absence of lugs made them lighter as well. The Colorado tubing from True Temper was innovative throughout its iterations. You'd always find plenty of shops playing up the 7-11 True Temper/Serotta bikes that had so many failures. Essentially almost every cyclist on the team had one break out from under them in the peloton or training. Lots of finger pointing between True Temper and Serotta, and lots of LBS played it up to customer for decades afterwards trying to steer customers away from the Serotta competition. That ugly false narrative and self serving dialog I always felt wasn't healthy for the cycling industry. I've always made it a practice to never support a stockist that preached a disingenuous narrative. When a shop tries to poison the well or misrepresent what needs repaired/replaced on a bike, I'm done with them forever.
My favorite was an LBS in Colorado. Wheatridge Cyclery. The owner announced a big clearance event on Craigslist. I inquired about BIG/TALL bikes they might have. I didn't know what they might sell. Never been there. The owner waxed on about how they fit "all" the Nuggets and Broncos players with height, and they wouldn't have any issues fitting me to a 63cm. They were "experts" in fitting tall people. I should have stopped corresponding with them right there. You can't fit a 6'8" or 6'6" man to a 63cm bike in good faith, especially a professional athlete that would have the means for a properly fitting custom bike. A 63cm stock bike, which he revealed was the largest frame sets they sold when pressed, is usually equivalent to five to six sizes too small for someone 6'7"-6'9". Yet he reiterated they fit "all" the Nuggets to such bikes (or the XL compact geometry equivalent with 57cm c-t actual seat tubes).
At one point, for a bunch of clearance price point bikes no less, he kept following up explaining how a XL he had was perfect for me, and he guaranteed that he could fit me to it. Guaranteed. Having never asked me a single question about PBH, arm length, femur length, etc. I actually had just sold off an OCR1 in XL because I'd fallen for the Giant catalog propaganda that said the XL bike fit like up to an equivalent 66cm. Two years later with the identical frame geometry the Giant catalog propaganda would change that to 63cm/64cm (I can't remember). At one point in the email exchange I finally revealed to him my frustration with how disingenuous he was becoming. I explained that his reputation was worth more than moving a couple of deeply discounted bikes at end of season. I flat out explained I actually had owned that exact size/geometry. I explained I knew something about bike fit, and even owned a Look Ergostem, and couldn't make such a "too small" bike properly fit. I continually explained that if they had anything big in their Specialized XXL (XXXL?) road bikes I'd come take a look. He wasn't trying to dump overstock in XXL Roubaix bikes. He wanted to get rid of what he had, he didn't give a damn about anything else. In the end when I called him out on it, he would NOT concede that he couldn't make an XL with the identical geometry that I'd already own, "fit." He was an "expert fitter" after all, that sold ALL the Nuggets and Broncos their bikes. So 6'8" offensive linemen and 6'11" and 7'2" centers were apparently ALL riding around on bikes with an actual 57cm c-t seat tube. Right. I posted a scathing negative review on Google and he managed to have it removed. I emailed him and explained he'd sell more bikes in the long run not trying to be a snake oil salesman, if he focused on properly fitting folks to bikes. He maintained that he could "easily" fit me to an XL frame with the identical geometry to what I'd already owned and found too small. Apparently he's a magical fitter. He should contact Specialized and explain they needn't actually bother making the XXL frames. He has "magic beans" and expertise that can properly fit anyone on just an XL, regardless of not asking any questions about their physiology, because he's got "fitting experience." Be careful people. Thar be monsters.
Its shops like that that turn people off from cycling. They buy a two grand bike, their neck, arms, wrists, and back hurts because the bike they had in stock is the wrong size, but what the shop needs to sell and what the customer needs to ride don't always align. The new cyclist never thinks to question that a professional "good bike" bike shop sold them a improperly fitting bike, and so they assume cycling just isn't for them and it hurts to ride. So the bike hangs in the garage unridden until its sold off on Craigslist. Meanwhile that shop lost a customer lifetime relationship selling accessories, tubes, bottles, jerseys repairs, etc. All to chase a short sighted inventory dump.
/ tall cyclist LBS rant