The MS Racing/alpinestars story.

[MuchAlohaNui]

Two frames in this thread, posted this April 2023.

https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/bargain-of-the-year-so-far.462505/

 

[Rmblfsh]

The catalog on the previous page is not the same catalog I posted.
The catalog I posted was the original catalog when the bikes first came out.
The bikes in the catalog were painted in the USA with hand painted decals.
I think I may still have one of the hand painted head tube decals.
They were pre production bikes. They were also the bikes use at the first industry show.
BTW the few action shots in that catalog, that rider is me.
Also it should be noted that Malcolm Smith no longer owned Malcolm Smith products when the bikes came out. He sold the distributorship to TransPacific holding. Although he did and still does own Malcolm Smith Motorsports in Riverside Ca. A retail motorcycle shop.
I can post details on Malcolm Smith Products if needed. I don’t want to post information already covered. Again I’m not sure what was covered on previous pages.

 

[Rmblfsh]

If anyone has one of the aluminum bonded frames. The top tube and down tube were aluminum. A non weldable aluminum. If you look in the bottom bracket shell you will see a spoke nipple. There is a spoke that runs from the head tube to the bottom bracket shell.
Unlike Trek bonded bikes that used a hydraulic jig (for lack of a better word) to hold the frame together while the bonding agent dried. Merida the manufacturer of the MS Racing bikes use a long spoke to hold the frames together.
Also the cable guide on those frames were riveted on the down tube and the hole used to drilled for the rivet is what caused the frames to brake and brake they did.

 

[Rmblfsh]

In the original story on the first page there is a person named Bill. I know of no Bill that worked in the MS Racing mtb program. That was a Phil that came to work at MS with Roger from fisher.

 

[MuchAlohaNui]

Were these early aluminum frames with the variant that was non-weldable prone to cracking like the later Alpinestars frames? Seems the aluminum was soft, or did they compensate by using thick-walled tubing?

Do you have any personal bikes/frames so you can share a few closeups? I'd be curious. Nonetheless all sounds pretty interesting and thanks for sharing.

 

[joglo]

thanks a lot for the interesting information.
Yes, if you have more information but also material (like a scan of better pictures of the shown first brochure) please post here.
It's hard to document those things before they get lost for ever...

If anyone has one of the aluminum bonded frames. The top tube and down tube were aluminum. A non weldable aluminum. If you look in the bottom bracket shell you will see a spoke nipple. There is a spoke that runs from the head tube to the bottom bracket shell.
Unlike Trek bonded bikes that used a hydraulic jig (for lack of a better word) to hold the frame together while the bonding agent dried. Merida the manufacturer of the MS Racing bikes use a long spoke to hold the frames together.
Also the cable guide on those frames were riveted on the down tube and the hole used to drilled for the rivet is what caused the frames to brake and brake they did.

Intresting.
We had a few close ups of the Merida produced MS racing bonded Aluminium frames also just recently
https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/the-ms-racing-alpinestars-story.116406/post-3332598
I found meanwhile an old report from a german bicylce magazin visiting Merida in Taiwan in the year 1989. It was listed that Merdia at this time has produced also bikes for brands like Raleigh, Trek, Mongoose, Peugeot, Malcolm Smith Racing and Fisher.

 

[Rmblfsh]

Were these early aluminum frames with the variant that was non-weldable prone to cracking like the later Alpinestars frames? Seems the aluminum was soft, or did they compensate by using thick-walled tubing?

Do you have any personal bikes/frames so you can share a few closeups? I'd be curious. Nonetheless all sounds pretty interesting and thanks for sharing.

No unfortunately I do not have any MS bikes or frames.
As stated in post 153, The first bonded aluminum frame broke on the down tube at the cable guide. Since the frames were made from a non weldable aluminum (a 7000 series tubing I believe) Merida attached the cable guide by drilling a hole in the tube and using a rivet to hold it in place. This caused two problems, 1) the hole itself was a fracture point. 2) the riveting process put extra stress on the tube. The problem is how a rivet works. The compression of the rivet as it pulls the mandrel and expands the rivet head inside the tube causes small fractures around the hole and continues to crack from there. It was a bad and untested design. I believe that a large number of frames had cracks forming before the bikes were even shipped. Merida sent hundreds of replacements frames as warranty replacement. The replacement frames had a cable guide that was bonded, not riveted. I don’t remember if there was a recall or if frames were replaced as needed. But I vaguely remember something about a recall of sorts. This all happened after the management team left and the company decided to get out of the bicycle business. The remaining inventory was sold at discounted prices to what remaining MS racing bicycle dealer that were left, which was not very many. But most of the leftover inventory went to bicycle shops.
There was another problem with Meride, this problem was with the first gen bikes.
It took about a year for this issue to show itself. Dealers started to replacing parts that were wearing out. One customer needed to have a headset replaced. The shop had a Shamino

 

[Rmblfsh]

Something happened to the end of my post.
and the standard Shimano headset did not fit. long story short, Merida made the frames with JIS (Japanese industry standard) size head tubes.
the headsets in this size are not available in the US, Shimano USA did not carry them. So headsets had to be ordered from Japan and bikes were taken out of stock and headsets removed for the immediate need.
campy was the standard at the time and JIS was bigger so any other headset available were to small and reaming with a campy tool kit was not an option either because the campy was a smaller size.
if you have a first gen bike take care of the headset because it may be difficult to get one.

 

[27motorhead]

@Rmblfsh some very informative information! Thanks for sharing

 

[joglo]

Sorry if some of this was covered, I did not read all 15 pages.
The bikes were sold to motorcycles dealers only. You had to buy a package that included 12 bikes.
6 of each model. The package was a turnkey mtb deal. The package also included jerseys, shorts, gloves, helmets, water bottles and cages. casual wear, ect… (All MS racing). The package came with display, grid work with hooks, catalogs and posters. The package sold for just under $6,500.00 OAC. Terms were 30, 60, 90 days.
The first year bikes did not come with Deore XT as stated on the first page. The pro comp xt had Deore and the comp xt had exage, There was one production run the first year. 3000 bikes I believe 1500 of each model. I’ll post more later. Pictures are of the first years catalog.

Hi, I also found the information from @Rmblfsh very intresting and insightfull.

There same "first" catalog is also published at Gringineer
https://www.gringineer.com/blogs/gringineer-cycles-bike-blog/1989-ms-racing-dirt-bikes-catalog/
called 1989, but to me this might be indeed already a 1988 one, as showing the first series with blue and white bikes.

I have spend a bit of effort optimizing the graphics, and as we do have brochures for other years here too please find the best I could get out of it: