Plz help identifying mountain bike frame

I've bought this bike as a project, the seller said it was a Merlin chromoly frame, however since getting it home and having a better look it has Ritchey stamped into the frame either side of where the back wheel fits. Searching the net has thrown up nothing that I can find, and even the serial number does not seem to match up with a merlin or a ritchey, so I'm lost in knowing what this frame is or it's value.

Logo Stamp


Overall frame


Serial num
You can't see the S at the start of the number in my pic, so should read S97085870


Rear end


The bike was advertised as a custom XC mountain bike.

Update:
I've found out a little more about the frame on Bikeradar.com, that it's most probably a Merlin frame and Ritchey dropouts, known as a Tig Team frame. One member on there suggested i try posting on this forum, to see if anyone here could shed more light on this frame.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Thank you.

merlin tig team sounds about right

merlin were (are?) a shop in ormskirk, lancs who started doing their own branded frames and then bikes.

I'm not sure if you know but Ritchey produced a lot of dropouts and BB shells etc for other manufacturers.

The decals look genuine, and I can't imagine anyone putting Merlin stickers on anything else. So it's probably what it says it is.

As for it being custom, they probably mean the components, the frames were mass produced in Asia, Merlin were quite good at fitting parts you wanted to their bikes rather than having a set specification IIRC.

Looks like a nice bike.

Looking at a Merlin advert in the Jan 1998 issue of MBR this is a Merlin "Tange", bottom of the range but still £499 with rigid forks and LX.

Tange Double Butted Frame + Forks, Anodised Titanium Finish, Wishbone Stays, Ritchey Dropouts...

Click to expand...

The Ritchey-tubed frames had no wishbone stay, forward facing seat clamps, and side cable routing.

"Team" was a spec level (XT/XTR) rather than a frame. A "Tange Team" was £829 rigid. If they bought just the frame it was £135.

Rock Lobster frames all had "Rock Lobster" decals instead of Merlin. The "Rock Lobster Expert" looks similar but had a down tube gusset.

That looks like a very good bike. Merlin have a very good reputation for their own badged bikes, built around good frames, which usually do well in bike magazine performance tests compared to better known names.

Unfortunately that reputation isn't normally reflected in the prices of used bikes, but that does mean you can get good vfm.

I wouldn't worry that the frames are mass produced in Asia - virtually all the well known makes are as well.

You won't get far on frame numbers as Merlin are not very good at info on that topic -I've tried.

I would say it's a Merlin TDB (which stands for Tange double-butted). The Ritchey dropouts and wishbone stays are consistent, and it looks quite like the example below, which was advertised on eBay a few years ago.

I don't know which (Taiwanese) factory is 'S', but 9708 tells you the date of manufacture was August 97, so it's a 1997 or 98 model. Some VooDoos of around that time have S serials, but in a slightly different format.

I presume the tubeset is Tange MTB, i.e., double-butted, but not heat-treated like the Merlin WCS (which was made of Ritchey WSC, i.e., Ritchey's reworked version of Tange Prestige). It was Merlin's basic steel frame, sold for £135, whereas the WCS was £200. I haven't seen a review of one, but the Total Bike review of a WCS was 5*, best of test, and this presumably shares the same geometry at a slightly greater weight.

If you don't know what your looking for and type in merlin bikes it's very easy at first to confuse the lush merlin usa bikes with the ok merlin uk bikes

once your clear your dealing with a merlin uk bike then your expectations settle down a bit

not a bad bike to ride, ritchey produced more drop outs than the entire u.k. schooling system so having them normally is not rare

clean it up, don't spend too much money on it..ride it and enjoy it

My 1993? Merlin (UK) TDB.

It has a twisted fluted downtube (looks like the Ebay one above does too) and a lovely gold/bronze silver lacquer.

Rampage":2l0rluu9 said:

I'm not sure if you know but Ritchey produced a lot of dropouts and BB shells etc for other manufacturers.

The decals look genuine, and I can't imagine anyone putting Merlin stickers on anything else. So it's probably what it says it is.

As for it being custom, they probably mean the components, the frames were mass produced in Asia, Merlin were quite good at fitting parts you wanted to their bikes rather than having a set specification IIRC.

Looks like a nice bike.

Click to expand...

I concur buddy, this all sounds right