Early 80's Specialized Sequoia

[Ted Durant]

There have been a couple of mentions of early 80's Sequoias in the Roadini thread. I had one that replaced my crashed Fuji America. I believe Bike Nashbar was blowing them out. It was a noticeably heavy bike, but absolutely wonderful to ride and very pretty. Alas, it was stolen out of my West Philadelphia apartment. If anyone has or sees on available in my size (I think 54 or 56?), please let me know! I'll send a RONA t-shirt as a finder's fee :-)

Ted Durant

Milwaukee, WI USA

[Peter Bridge]

Did your noticeably heavy Sequoia perhaps have heavy wheels or thornproof tubes or a spring Brooks saddle or some such?  I find Sequoias to be sportingly light. 

~pb 

[Ted Durant]

On Saturday, July 22, 2023 at 11:57:41 AM UTC-4 Peter Bridge wrote:

Did your noticeably heavy Sequoia perhaps have heavy wheels or thornproof tubes or a spring Brooks saddle or some such?  I find Sequoias to be sportingly light. 

No, it was the stock parts that came with it. Fairly light wheels, Turbo tires. I would make the same statement about Heron #1, the prototype, which is a Road frame built with Touring stays at the rear. Both frames are a joy to ride. 

Interestingly, I read somewhere that the Sequoia was designed with a bit heavier down tube and chain stays. Recently I posted on a frame building forum a query about the ratio of stiffness among the frame tubes. If you look at older Reynolds tube set specs, they have .1mm thicker down tubes than top and seat. Or, if you like, their top and seat tube walls are .1mm thinner than the down tube. All other tube manufacturers, and even Reynolds now today, specify tube sets with equal wall thickness around the main triangle. It's also important to note that the down tube and seat tube were always 1/8" larger diameter than the top tube. Lately it seems steel builders have been experimenting away from that, but I haven't seen any discussion of why they would do that. For my Rivendell Road, for example, Grant spec'd the exact same tube for both top and down tubes. So, that goes the other direction, making the top tube exactly the same stiffness as the down tube. BUT, because the top tube is shorter than the down tube, there is less butted section remaining in the top tube. Anyway, my hypothesis is that the relative stiffness among the tubes has an effect on how the frame feels, and the a stiffer down tube and chain stays is what produced the "magic" feel of a Reynolds frame. Perhaps backing up this hypothesis is the "Spine" line of frames that Trek built, with steel or titanium down tubes and chain stays, and carbon tubes elsewhere. Their marketing touted the effect that had on the feel of the frame. A friend has the titanium one and he loves it.

Sorry for the meandering detour. I just found the Specialized Sequoia frame to feel heavy when lifting, compared to some other steel frames. But I loved the way it rode.

Ted Durant

Milwaukee WI USA

[iamkeith]

Were there different versions of the Sequoia?  The one I was familiar with was a dark metalic grey one, but I think it came in dark blue, too.  It wA a fantastic bike, built by Toyo if I remember correctly. But I thought it was a full-on touring bike, with heavy tubing, low bottom bracket  shallow seat tub angle - compared to sportier bikes of the era.  My friend used his for numerous, long, heavily-loaded tours, including a months-long, dirt-road (mud) trek from Montana to Alaska and back.

[Ryan]

I remember Bicycle Guide praising those Sequoias for their fine ride and careful craftsmanship, but they pointed out that the bikes weren't particularly light. Sport-touring? I also remember Specialized having a full-bore touring bike with all required the braze-ons for fenders/racks 3- water bottle braze-ons called the Expedition, appropriately and I seem to recall in Bicycling ads that these were dark blue. Maybe that's what your friend toured on?

[Ryan]

I also suspect they varied tubing sets basis frame size ; something that Bridgestones also did , if you read their ad copy

[JohnS]

The early 80's Sequoia was the sport/touring model, in the middle between the road race Allez and the full on touring Expedition. Not sure what color options were available. I use to own an 83 Expedition in gray/anthracite. My 82 Sequoia is dark blue. It's not a feather weight, nor is it a tank, weigh in at just over 23 pounds with pedals and two water bottle cages. Fully lugged Tange chrome-moly tubing, with long thinned lugs, it has nice neutral handling, mounts for fenders and a rear rack and room for 32mm tires (maybe 35).

JohnS

[John Dewey]

Just so y’all know, TD is kind of a local legend. He is, after all, one of Richard Schwinn’s best pals. I know this because I’m Richard’s 2nd ‘best pal’ (🤪). And he rides beautiful bicycles. He even persuaded Richard to build him the most gorgeous WF with most elegant, low ‘French’ bend you ever saw. And that took a lot of persuading I tell you. So when Ted Talks…we need to listen. 

Jock

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[Ryan]

My bad...screwed up the colors. Anyway, I do remember being impressed by how thoughtfully these bikes were designed and equipped, and the fact that your 82 Sequoia (and no doubt 83 Expedition) is still going strong is a testament to that.

Other fun fact...I think the team bike on American Flyers starring Kevin Costner was a Specialized Allez ; red, I think

[JohnS]

Yep, Costner rode a red Allez in American Flyers, fun bike movie. I'll have to torture my family and watch it again some time. 

JohnS

[Erik Wright]

The most recent bike I've built up for myself is a 1986 Sequoia. I can't remember how I settled on the year of my frame, but I'm pretty sure it's a 1986 based off some of the frame details. The cable stops, lugs, bottle placement, something like that.

At the time of my search I'd been riding a zippy, beat up Italian road bike (Bertoni Corsa Mondiale) that I was having fun on. The issue was that it was a size too small, and I had a Technomic stem almost max'd out in height in order to get the handlebars level-ish with the saddle. It was a 56cm so would fit fine for an aggressive road fit for me (5'10", 86.5 pbh), but that's not what I was looking for. The tall stem wasn't a huge issue, just one of those things where you're like "man I wish I just had a bigger frame..." That, plus the fact that it very closely max'd out at 700x28 (probably should've been 700x25) had me on the lookout for a replacement frame. You know, projects.

Relevant to the recent Roadini threads, I was looking for something that'd be my rack-less, fender-less, summer'23 bike that could fit 700x32. I briefly got swept up looking for a Rambouillet or Romulus, but stumbled across a powdercoated Sequoia for sale. I saw that as a functional equivalent to both of those Rivs. I offered to trade some of my pottery in exchange for the frameset, and the owner was down for a barter situation. I picked up the frame in Brooklyn, built it up, and have been riding it as my zippy summer road bike since June or so.

I was pretty immediately let down that it didn't ride as quickly or feel as fast & fun as the Bertoni, but I'm far from disappointed overall. It is a nice ride. I think the change in ride feel can be attributed to a few things: I sized wayyy up to a 60cm for a French Fit, so the wheelbase is likely longer than intended for someone my size. Also, as pointed out earlier in this thread- the tubing on a 60cm is probably spec'd more stoutly to accommodate a larger rider. Overall there's much more of an "in" the bike than the "on" the bike feel of the Bertoni.

Finally- photos attached. Bare bars because I just swapped from non-aero levers to aero levers in order to accommodate a Ruthworks handlebar bag.

Erik, Philly

[Ted Durant]

On Monday, July 24, 2023 at 11:09:06 PM UTC-4 John Dewey wrote:

Just so y’all know, TD is kind of a local legend. He is, after all, one of Richard Schwinn’s best pals.

Anyone who read Grant's Blahg entry on the closing of Waterford will know that Richard Schwinn has more best pals than just about anyone you can name. I happen to be lucky enough to live near him and his true best pal, his wife, Shoe. And I get to see them regularly at Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concerts.

Regarding my Waterford .... keep your eyes out for the next issue of American Randonneur.

[Stephen]

Hey Erik!

Fun to see that old sequoia pop up on here, still got a soft spot in my heart for that bike! Good memories..

Cheers,

Stephen

[JohnS]

Hello Erik,

Nice looking Sequoia! I agree, my '82 has a nice ride feel to it as well. I did a 60 mile ride this past Saturday on it, very comfortable, fits very well. You can check the year of your bike by looking at the serial number stamped on the bottom bracket. Mine starts with M2, indicating 1982, so I would think you bike would be M6.

JohnS

[Eric Marth]

There's a 54 Sequoia frame on the iBOB: 

https://groups.google.com/g/internet-bob/c/zN8AhPA-bew

[El Sapo]

I found one and got it all set up to my liking. On a ride once, somebody asked if the bike “planed” when it got up to speed. It surprised me that someone would use a windsurfing description to describe a bike ride. After that question I was determined to see if it did. What I found was that my skinny tire, drop bar days were over. Getting that thing up to speed wasn’t comfortable for me. On the plus side, like the expedition, there is a market out there for those “Grant approved” bikes. It sold quickly.

[Eric Marth]

There's a cool raw steel Sequoia rolling chasis on the Crust Classifieds. It's a 54cm. No price listed 

https://crustbikes.com/a/shopicial/topics/174138