the Serotta rebuild story

I have mentioned this already a couple of times but hereby i want to tell the complete, but short, story

Back in '95 or so I bought a Serotta ATX at Kapteijn Tweewielers in Amsterdam replacing my PEARSON custom.
It was my pride and joy,..rode the bike all over the place, numerous competitions, al lot of trips to my work.
I equipted the ATX with Spinergy wheels, Cook Bros RSR cranks, Paul rear mech, XTR front Mech, Magura's,USE Seatpost etc,..
During the competitions runs it was an impressive ride, i tried a couple of other bikes but none drove as good as the serotta, fitted like a glove.

After a couple of years i wanted to convert her into a single speed, in the meantime a collected some other bikes so the Serotta wasn't used that much so i wanted give her a second life. Replacing the Pace with the Tange swichblade, brakes by Onza V-brakes


When i made the first testdrive i noticed something strange,..my seatpost slide down,.. :$
After checking what the reason for this was i unfortunately discovered a crack in the seattube


Because i bought the frame new from the dealer with a lifetime quaranty i went back to the dealer.
He told me that this was bad luck, the importer went bankrupt in the meantime so he couldn't do anything for me except throwing the frame away for me.
I didn't accept this and contacted Serotta myself.


Serotta gave me a return number and i could send it back , and after a investigation they could inform me if this crack would be a quaranty issue.
I took the frame apart and made some last pictures because there was a chance that the frame was not going to get shipped back.

After a couple of weeks Serotta made me very happy by informing me that the seattube was going to be replaced under warranty.
Because i had to pay the shipping costs to the factory myself they offered me a paint scheme upgrade, i now could choose a two colour scheme instead of the single colour it used to be.
After making a lot of different colour options i went for Onyx black faded to candy apple read with white logo's.
I was after a slick look but still some retro look and feel.

During the rebuild process Serotta kept me informed by sending me pictures of the replcement.
There are some real welding artists working there,..so impressive!
First the cut the cracked tube out


and they put the new one in


I requested Serotta if they could remove the canti studsand add some discbrake pads but they didn't design this frame for disc and couldn't do that, but the put an extra cable stop on the top tube to make it V-brake compatible.
Hereby a picture after the paint job,..my god,..sooooooo pretty


In the meantime i was starting to buy the new parts, which was not simple i can tell you, the parts i was looking for had to be red, in very good order, and from a specialist brand and time period correct.
Apart from the colour, the quality had to be outstanding.
I have a soft spot for Paul so i wanted to put as much as red paul parts on.
The result is impressive,..if i might say myself,..it is a gorgeous bike, and stepping back on the serotta after such a long time felt like coming home after a long time,..felt great.