Jeff Neese

I had posted in this forum looking for information and/or opinions before I bought it, but only got one reply and nobody else said they owned one. It's a 1997 Specialized Sirrus. I ended up buying it, for $200. The seller said it had hung in the basement for the past 14 years, and judging by the condition I tend to believe it. Even before it was put away, it seems to have been ridden very little, judging by the normal indicators of brake track wear, chainrings, etc.

What's interesting about it is that after they discontinued the popular lugged-frame Sirrus (1993-ish), it disappeared from the lineup until it came back years later as an aluminum hybrid. Except for this one year - 1997. This is a fully DB chromoly frame and fork, built with Specialized "Direct Drive" tubing, but it's TIG welded. It seems to be a one-off for that year only. Naturally I always prefer a lugged frame, but I have to say the TIG welding on this is the best I've seen. (Gotta love those robots!) The groupset is Shimano RSX all the way around.

Since everything is in good shape, I won't have to replace much - just a teardown/rebuild with new tires, tubes, cables, etc. I'm planning to keep it mostly original but the one thing I will be replacing is the shifters and brake levers. I hate brifters so I'll need to decide what I want to do with this one. The tires are 23c but it looks like I'll have room for 28, or at least 25.

I predict it will turn out to be a very nice ride.

RustyJames 

Beautiful condition! The brifters will be snatched up quickly and 2 bills is a great price for this machine.

Jeff Neese

I haven't had them on a bike before, but I think when I remove the bolt-on housing stops I may find regular downtube shifter bosses. It would be sweet if that's the case, and I can just throw on a set of downtube shifters.

Kontact

That kind of housing stop is exclusively used with shifter bosses.

In 1997 RSX was still 7 speed, so your best bets for shifters are 80s Ultegra, the blue '89 105 levers or RX100. The Ultegra feel the best, the RX100 would match the best

Shimano still makes a period correct aero brake lever

merziac

WOW!

That is fantastic and a beautiful color, amazing, great score.

I get the brifter phfttt, but would encourage you to give them a chance, I have a couple of retro builds with them and they really bring out the greatness of the frames that was being held back some despite being original DT shifters.

This frame was designed specifically for them, something Big S excelled at, not that you may ever tell but you never know.

Kontact

How did Specialized design specifically for brifters on a frame with down tube shifter bosses?

merziac

As stated above, those bosses are likely brifter cable guide specific, even if not, as I stated, Big S went very far down the rabbit hole with design and consideration in all they did and yes, maybe not a lot goes into these but between Merz, DiNucci and so many other amazing designers they ingrained a lot of this sort of thing into all they do.

I would think a frame where brifters are used and many will spend more time on the hoods and less in the drops would be a consideration knowing how they did things.

They are one of the few companies that truly get after it like that, that far back.

Really just my 2c so......

Jeff Neese

Thanks. The last thing I needed was another bike, but ... Well, you know.

When we've traveled without our bikes and end up renting some, I've made it a point to try to like brifters. I just don't. I know I'm in the minority. I have a set of Dia Compe ENE downtube shifters, but might want to go indexed on this one. I'm sure between now and spring, a nice set of NOS Shimano 3x7 will show up on eBay. It's either that or bar ends. I'll stash the original brifters away in case I ever sell it.

I'm pretty sure that Specialized mostly designed their own frames (and still do) but outsourced the manufacturing to a number of places over the years. It's curious that it seems to be a one-off. Specialized documentation is pretty sparse but I'm unaware of anywhere else this frame was used. It probably didn't sell very well because average consumers viewed it as old tech compared to the cool-looking hydroformed aluminum bikes that were becoming popular, so Specialized dropped it after one year. It is indeed a very nice frame. Between my wife and I we have three Rockhoppers, all of similar tubing (Specialized "Direct Drive Cro-Moly"), and those are superb frames. I think this will ride and handle great.

merziac

You're welcome and yep, outsourced very early on with great oversight from Merz and DiNucci, who Sinyard the tyrant sent to Japan to get them inline with his vision.

They did, he got rich and we have an untold number of fantastic frames that were very reasonable for the day that will be around for literally forever for the great work that was done.

I'm no real fan of the tyrant but the work he had done by so many amazing talented people carries the whole thing very far afield then and now to our benefit.

Kontact

Those are standard Shimano cable guides that only mount to Campy style shift lever bosses, that happen to be located in the identical spot to where DT shifters would normally go. The geometry otherwise is normal for road bikes going back to the late 70s. So I don't think there was a magic design element for brifters on this mid/entry level road bike.

merziac

Ok, well again, like I said, just my 2c, guess I don't know any better than you do.

That being said, this one is a fantastic specimen, color, condition and would be willing to bet it rides stellar, especially with the brifters.

plonz 

Love that color. Enjoy the build and please let me know when you’re ready to offload that stem!

gugie 

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that frame was TIG welded by a human in 1997.

Jeff Neese

If so, they did a really nice job. The "blobs" are amazingly uniform and neat.

gugie 

I'm a retired mechanical engineer, and have known some very skilled welders. Interestingly enough, some of the best weld jobs I've seen are on production frames. Custom builders make at most a few dozen frames/year, whereas a guy working in a factory does dozens a day. Practice makes perfect.

Jeff Neese

You are not wrong. I didn't notice this until I went through the pictures I took. "Handmade in Taiwan".

georges1

on a side note some of their allez pro and allez comp frames were handmade in japan with tange prestige tubing. Even during years 1997-1998, Specialized used Ritchey Nitanium tubing which was a modified Tange tubing made to Ritchey specs on their high end MTBs.

Jeff Neese

These are the shifter bosses, currently holding the Shimano bolt-on cable stops. It's the common type with a 12x12mm square platform. The Dia Compe ENE friction shifters that I just happen to have on hand fit perfectly. If I want to go to Shimano indexed shifters the SL-A410 would probably be the most "correct" ones since they are also RSX.

I'm rethinking the idea that I have to replace the brifters. Most of my experience has been short-term, and were on low-end aluminum rental bikes, so the overall experience wasn't going to be great to begin with. Maybe I'll refurb these and see how I like them on a good bike, and where I can dial in the fit.

merziac

Like I said.....

Jeff Neese

Yes, I may follow your advice to give the brifters a chance. I still think I will end up not liking them though. Besides, I've seen a YouTube video of a guy doing a complete disassembly and rebuild of these. Something that complex shouldn't even be on a bicycle, let alone for something as mission-critical as braking and shifting. No way I would tour with them. At least these are all metal, no plastic parts.

merziac

They are far more robust than they should be IMO and I have never had any that didn't recover with a soak and flush with Tri-flow or WD-40.

The braking side of them is never effected by the gumming up as far as I can tell so that is not an issue.

They are not the be all end all and I just retro fitted my main vintage daily driver back to analog for Eroica, it is going to stay that way for the time being as it is as good like this as it was with the brifters.





This however is fantastic with the 11 speed, brifters and all.

mstateglfr 

The misinformation, guessing, and surprise that downtube shifter bosses have provided people in this thread is bonkers.
They are just downtube shifter bosses on a mid 90s mid level frame. They are about as universal as it got.

merziac

Yep, we resemble that remark and your surprise is surprising as well.

Lascauxcaveman 

Yeah, downtube friction/indexed shifters if you must, but do not hate on 7-speed RSX without giving them a fair go. They are as good as any brifters I have used. Okay, that's only four different examples, but still.

Jeff Neese

I don't think anyone is "hating" on them. These RSX seem to have a good reputation except for their tendency to become gunked-up, which is easily solved. The ones on this bike were inoperative too when I got it, but work fine now. I would expect that an annual flush and relube with Triflow would keep them working well.

I expressed that I simply don't like brifters of any variety, but that's not hate, just personal preference. I'd rather have bar-end or downtube shifters, and brake levers of my choosing. But as I also said, since I already have these and they work, I may put them back on the bike and try them for a season. Easy enough to change later.