Re: [CR]753 vs. 531 telling the difference

(Example: Production Builders:Teledyne)

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 22:02:53 -0600
From: "John Thompson" <JohnThompson@new.rr.com>
Organization: The Crimson Permanent Assurance
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: Re: [CR]753 vs. 531 telling the difference
References: <1ad.2b68d9a2.2ed1657e@aol.com>
In-Reply-To: <1ad.2b68d9a2.2ed1657e@aol.com>


OROBOYZ@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 11/20/2004 8:10:39 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> kohl57@starpower.net writes:
>
> << You know it's made of either Reynolds 753 .... or 531. How do you tell the
> difference? >>
>
> This sort of a cruelty joke, but one way to tell if It's Raleigh Team pro is
> whether it breaks! Then it's 753...
> Honestly, I think you are OK but supposedly "there was a bad batch" of tubing
> in the earliest issue of those, leading to all the ones around here breaking.
> We talked about this issue here on this list a few eons ago. I had just moved
> from managing a shop that sold Raleigh's exclusively to owning my own shop,
> (Toga Bike Shop, later to be named CDO) We opened in 1975. So I think, like
> you, that 753 was introduced in '75. Of course it could have been like SR and
> intro=duced but really not available immediately to normal mortals (consumers).
> There were no 753s sold in Greensboro at the local Raleigh dealership, but I
> think 3 Team Pro frames got delivered in Winston Salem (where I had worked)
> and all three broke.
> So treat it tenderly and don't let any 250 lb big gear pusher borrow it for
> the weekend!

IIRC, Raleigh was the only builder with access to 753 for the first year or two of production. The original sets were considerably lighter than the later ones. By the time I started on it (early 80's) the 753R sets had a good reputation for durability. We (Trek) never had a frame failure that could have been attributed to the tubing itself. Several of our team frames died in crashes, and one of the production frame customers inisted (against our advice) on having a FD braze-on installed, which came to a bad end eventually, but that wasn't really the fault of the tubing. Reynolds actually recommended against *ANY* braze-ons. IIRC, it was a chain jam in the FD that did it in, causing the tube to collapse at the braze-on.

--

-John Thompson (john@os2.dhs.org)
Appleton WI USA