Murray Missile 

I searched high and low for a Murray Missile like the one I had as a kid for years. A couple years ago someone brought me one to work on for them. I immediately stopped wanting one LOL.

1989Pre 

I'm not talking about a replacement. I'm talking about the real O.G.

RandolphCarter

My first bike was a Columbia knock off of a sting ray. Second was a Team Murray BMX. Both firmly in the "gaspipe with steel rims" camp.

First road bike was an early 70s Peugeot U08, with steel rims, cottered cranks, plastic derailleurs, and an extremely large and unsexy dork disc. I *think* it had stem shifters and turkey lever brakes. I did "upgrade" to slip on foam bar grips. I did upgrade to square taper alloy cranks on that bike.

Current low end frame is this "Allitalia":



Definitely a bike boom era ride, except that someone tossed a box of parts at it, including a titanium spindle Italian threaded O.M.A.S bottom bracket.

The frame has some of the worst welds I've ever seen on a bike, stamped dropouts, no braze ons, and an exposed seam/weld on the underside of the BB shell.

I'll need to source a dork disc...

Murray Missile 

I can understand wanting the original from a nostalgia stand point but I knew my original Murray was LONG gone. I do have mySilver Streak sled I got for Christmas 1963 though if that counts. I thought it had been thrown out decades ago but it turned out Mom had given it to my nephews when they moved and it actually survived them. My sister asked us last year if we wanted an old sled for decorating and when I went to pick it up there was my old sled! It even still had the blue nylon rope my Dad put on it because the one it came with was too short.

sbarner 

Yes, definitely. I think of it as a sign of how easily the America of the Midwest could model North Korea. I was a Boy Scout myself for a couple years. Being struck down by a car while riding home from scouts on a stormy night left me with just enough of a financial stake to enter the world of "deluxe bicycles" by underwriting my first Varsity. The two+ years I spent riding that bike are why I feel no compelling reason to own one today. I have paid my dues.

sbarner 

Has anyone ever cut one of these apart? I wonder if the tubes were deformed to provide a mechanical aspect to the lugged joint, or if the bond between the dissimilar metals was strong enough to keep the steel tube from pulling out of the lug over time. I've never seen one of these come apart on its own, but then I haven't come across many Kabukis in the wild.

Pompiere

The tubes are flared and there is some kind of plug to keep the molten metal from going inside the tubes when the lugs are cast. I have seen an article somewhere about it but I can't seem to find it now. I found this picture from another post that has a rough sketch on the frame decal. The joints on my bike are solid. There are not even any cracks in the paint where the two materials meet. The stiffness of the cast joint is why they need to use the expanding quill seat post. The aluminum cannot flex enough to use a conventional seat bolt.

There are also not any vent holes in the tubing inside the frame. I have a small piece of metal, like a BB, rattling inside my top tube with no way to get to it. If there was a hole, I could get the offending piece out or inject some expanding foam to silence it. It mainly happens when I tilt the bike to lift it onto a rack or work stand. When I'm riding, I don't notice it as much.

sbarner 

There is absolutely nothing intrinsically "fast" about a bike like this. If you put a strong enough rider on it, any bike can go fast, now matter how "slow" the bike itself is. In the rainbow of bicycle construction, it is difficult to imagine how a derailleur-equipped bicycle could be built any less high-performance than this example.

The primary reason why the US manufacturers were putting out the worse "lightweight" bicycles in the world in the 1970s was because, culturally, bicycles had become toys for over a generation in this country. The term "gaspipe" is used disparagingly by people who love bikes because the tubing on these American-built models more closely resembled the thick, black-iron pipe long used for gas lines in buildings, right down to the sharp seam inside the pipe. To me, at least, the difference between pipe and tubing is that the latter is drawn over some type of mandrel to thin the walls. It may very well start with a seam, but this may largely disappear in the drawing process. Pipe starts out as flat sheet that is rolled into a cylinder, electric welded together, then the seam is ground off the outside. Since Murray, Huffy, and the like were in the business of making toys and lawnmower frames, they were geared up to weld pipe and fittings together and that's what they stuck with. Schwinn made a massive investment in this technology in the late 1950s, and the fact that this had not been fully amortized when the Bike Boom hit ultimately helped sink the company.

I have a late-80s Atala frame that I rode for several years as my commuter bike that has "Tullio" tubing. It is seamed, Hi-Ten stuff that is actually pretty thin-walled and the seam is very small. The bike has the same workmanship of the better Atalas and has forged dropouts and other accoutrements that one would expect from a handmade frame. The bike actually rode quite nicely and its tight geometry made it a fun ride. I brazed on eyelets so I could squeeze fenders onto it and rode it until it got so rusty that even I was embarrassed to be seen with it. I have a Torelli frame which was probably built by Billato that uses Oria straight-gauge, hi-ten steel tubing. I put a borescope down the tubes a couple days ago and you can see that there was a seam there, but you really have to look for it. Like the Atala, the workmanship and fittings are those of a decent, production racing bike, a cut above what you would have found on a Motobecane, Peugeot or Gitane of the era. All True Temper tubing started out as seamed, but was worked so much that it could be called seamless by the time they were done. There is nothing intrinsically wrong about using seamed and/or hi-tensile steel tubing in a bicycle frame, but derailleurs are really only useful for bicycles that are going to be ridden long distances over varied terrain and I think a solid case can be made that gaspipe-tubed bicycles were built to be toys intended to be ridden around a neighborhood. The frame material is only one piece of evidence for my position, but I contend that the typical American Bike Boom, department store, derailleur-equipped bicycle was a paradox that should never have been marketed to an unsuspecting public.

It is not my intent to pee on anyone's parade, and I really like seeing pics of people's UO8s and similar almost all-steel bicycles, but I still live at Huffy Throw Headquarters, where the Bicycle Toss was invented, 40 years ago. A 1973 Ford LTD belongs in a Demolition Derby, and a Huffy gas pipe special belongs on The Pile. Neither should ever have been built.

beng1

This is typically what people say who know nothing about physics or engineering. You can take two ten-speed bikes from 1973, my Huffy Scout, and the most expensive ten-speed road-bike sold in 1973 whatever it was, a Schwinn Paramount maybe, and on a level road with the same rider, gearing, pedal-crank length and tires there will be no difference in the top speed of the two bikes. Only if there is a race uphill will the Paramount have an advantage with the same rider because it will weight maybe ten or fifteen pounds less. If the rider of the Paramount happens to weigh 15 pounds more than the Huffy rider then the bikes will be on equal footing again.

That is all that the extra money spent on high-end bikes is for, weight reduction and maybe some ride quality. Both the low and high-end bikes can have the same general frame design and geometry, the same riding position and aerodynamics, and they all have ball bearings for their rotating parts with the same friction drag etc.. Outside of the fraction of one-percent of one-percent of the population that are pro riders, the general cycling public, there is no practical reason to dump money on high-end bicycles, they are just there for those vulnerable to marketing sports equipment, whether it be Abdul Jabbar's sneakers, Richard Petty's brand of racing helmet, or Greg LeMond's bicycle, none of those items will make the buyer a pro at anything except for emptying their bank account into the coffers of some corporate account, and soothing an insecure ego.

Murray Missile 

beng1

Someday I hope to restore this AMF Pursuit, I have most of the parts to it scattered here and there, it is about 4374th on my to-do list, but sometimes things do get bumped up the list if I am in the mood, then I will be able to enter some pursuit competitions right?;

Murray Missile 

Hey, that's got Hellenic stays, aka "triple triangle" frame. Good enough reason to save it for me.

clubman 

Forum member @browngw has this nice Bridgestone-made Supercyle with faux lugs.

browngw 

Thanks clubman

This 1976 Excalibur has been treated to a period rear rack and a black B17 since this picture, but it remains one of my favorite bikes to ride.




[/QUOTE]

Chuck M 

When I acquired my wife's Bridgestone I noticed the lugs didn't seem like typical lugs. When I posted pictures of it, T-Mar had made mention of the lugs being cast but didn't elaborate. I assumed it was a faux lug treatment used for these boomers.But for what it is, this is a pretty well built frame. And I like the quill seat post. This is the first seat post I've found on any old bikes I've bought that haven't had the checkered pattern from someone trying to remove it.

Ironfish653

That's a neat bike! Nobody does "Slightly Odd, Yet Utterly Sensible" like the Japanese

capnjonny 

Found this Record Acesoon after I started volunteering at the bike Exchange in a pile of bikes destined to be shipped to Africa. It originally had drop bars with turkey leavers , I moded it over the next couple yeare into this, and finally this. I always thought Raleigh frames were a cut above gas pipe using Hi ten 20 / 30 steel .

Final version

sbarner 

Ignoring the unfounded insult, I could agree with you if we were talking about a UO-8 or even a Raleigh Record, but those US-built gaspipe specials had a lot more problems than material choice. They were bicycles that barely functioned and were designed to be sold, not to be ridden. This is why bike mechanics pretty much universally despised them. The American public deserved better. I cut my teeth as a mechanic figuring out how to make imported bike boom 10-speeds work well, but at least I had something to work with. Murray, Huffy and the like should have stuck with sidewalk bikes and cruisers and stayed away from anything with a derailleur or a hand brake. Just look at the cable runs in your photo and tell me that they were not a complete afterthought with their reliance on full-length casing and weak spring clips instead of the manufacturers spending a few hours to design a system that would actually still be working a year down the line. This is not an argument about elitism, but one of a major economic and manufacturing power foisting off some of the worse bicycles ever sold outside third world countries, when we could and should have done so much better. The sad thing is that it took the public so long to figure this out and beat these companies into bankruptcy. Good riddance to them and their gaspipe trash.

beng1

Yes, AMF used that on it's road bikes, like GT did, and I have picture of a TOC bicycle that has them too, so they are old tech. From an engineering standpoint it would make the frame more stiff and stronger if that is what is needed. Thank-you for noticing. The AMF track bike in the movie "breaking away" has this same frame.

beng1

Pssssst, you are in the Classic and Vintage section of a bicycling forum where hundreds or thousands of cyclists love their old Schwinns and other heavy old bicycles. They know what you have missed, that the bikes are as easily enjoyed as they were when they were new, as I enjoyed mine as a teen in the 70s, that not all cyclists are snobs and that all parts of the history of cycling, and all parts of history period, are worth preserving, not just the history of the elite, powerful and wealthy. It is why world famous professor and historian Howard Zinn wrote A People's History of The United States.

beng1

Looks good to me. If the tires will pump up maybe the seller will let you take it for a ride around the block.

Trakhak

In a shop I managed in the early '80s, the owner, having figured out that he lost money on almost every department store bike repair we took in. proposed instituting a "no department store bikes" policy. Several of the mechanics threatened to walk out if that happened, arguing that it would be elitist to turn those repairs away and that we had a moral obligation to our less-affluent customers to keep their bikes running, even if the shop lost money.

I proposed that we leave it up to the head mechanic, a highly self-educated guy who grew up in poverty, to make the call. The other mechanics, who all looked up to him, readily agreed.

He said, "Those bikes are always brought in in the trunk of a nice-looking car. If they can afford a car, they can afford a real bike. Screw 'em." That was the last we heard of the mutiny.

1989Pre 

If you were in England and wanted a British road bike in the 1950's-60's and were part of the proleteriat, most marques had a model that was made of a very decent hi-ten. Raleigh/Carlton had their own proprietary "2328", while Reynolds had their 'A' Quality, which was butted. You'd only gain about 250g over a frame-set with 531 straight-guage. Anyone know the specs of the Raleigh tubing?

1989Pre 

One thing I do not fully understand is the dis-connect between European and British bicycle technology, and that of the Americans. Certainly by the late 1960's American riders were desperate for lighter, higher-quality bikes. I didn't turn 14 till 1971, but nobody I knew had even heard of Masi, Bertin or Claud Butler. You could probably get a Raleigh Clubman if you really dug through the catalogues, and some importers could get their hands on limited models of European racing bikes, but there was a dramatic and befuddling gap in technology between the Europeans and the U.S. bicycle manufacturers.
I'm not really buying that there was no market in the U.S. for what in England were mid-range bikes. (Whenever U.S. companies want a market, they just create one). I understand the tariff situation back then, but we didn't have to import anything but the technology, itself.
Along with the heavier offerings, U.S. companies should have produced some lighter bikes.

Hondo6

The emphasized part above is provably not true.

Consider two bikes identical in all ways except for weight. Let A be the combined weight of the rider and heavier bike, and B be the combined weight of the rider and lighter bike.

Assume both are ridden by the same rider under the same atmospheric conditions on the same day. Further assume this happens on perfectly level ground in a straight line long enough for the rider to attain maximum speed.

Ignoring possible fatigue effects, the rider's maximum possible power output will be the same in either case. And in either case, maximum speed will occur when rider maximum power output equals the sum of frictional losses plus aerodynamic losses.

Above, it was stated that both bicycles have identical axle bearings. However, bicycle axle bearings - like all bearings - generate friction proportional to load (here, the load is the weight of the bike plus rider). This friction consumes some of the rider's maximum power output, making it unavailable to contribute to forward speed.

Because it weighs more, the heavier bike and rider combo (A) will generate more axle bearing friction. It will thus leave less of the rider's maximum power output (remember: same rider, so same maximum power out in either case) available to overcome other frictional losses and losses due to aerodynamic drag. If A/B is 1.05, the heavier bike will generate 5.0% more axle bearing drag than the lighter one.

Bottom line: under these conditions, the otherwise-identical lighter bicycle will be faster. Yes, the difference will be very small; bearing friction typically doesn't consume much power at all. But even a tiny difference in top speed is NOT the same thing as "no difference".

Repeating this quote for emphasis. Perhaps you should review a bit of “engineering and physics” yourself – as well as do a bit of research on the subjects as they apply to bicycling – before making another statement like this in the future.

I don't personally care what bike you choose to ride, and I'm not overly concerned about the weight of mine. But gratuitous insults without reason aren't exactly cool, "amigo". Neither is implying you’re some kind of “expert” when you are not.