Saracing !!

Reading on another forum I came across the word ' Saracing ' it used as a derogatory word to describe anything not up to the task or just plain minging. Now I understand this was a word used by riders of the early new century and was derived from Saracen, I suppose Saracen Cycles venture into the cheap youth market. From what I understand, Saracens were not well regarded by the new century riders. What exactly was the problem, were Saracens that bad, or is it more a snobery issue ?

Now I have only experience of early nineties steel framed Saracens, my first being a '92 model and that one I used well, I never broke it, wheels yes, chains yes, bars yes, but never the frame and forks, so what I am asking, is this term '' Saracing'' is it a fair term as applied to Saracen in general, or what ?

Does Saracen have a low status in the MTB market, what about here, what do the rest of you think about the marque ?

Has anyone ever broke a Saracen frame ?

reply

in my experience saracen used to be pretty good bikes in the nineties
but now due to there low end full suss range i think there regarded as
your bog standard catalogue bike! tho i think they still make some
ok bikes at the higher end

My view on Saracens(the earlier ones, not modern poop) is of well made and designed, no nonsense, functional bikes that were built for a purpose.

I can picture intrepid bearded, wirey fellows on their Saracens laden with panniers, tents etc exploring Outer Mongolia or picking their way along the foothills of the Himalayas.

I'd happily own a Saracen.

I think my riding years probably cover the end of Saracens heyday and the start of the demise in the mid/late 90's. My father had a Saracen in 93 and it was a great bike with good spec parts. However by 97 they had started releasing a lot of lower end bikes, the type of things with plastic coated pig iron cranks.

Things seem to have hit an all time low by the turn of the millenium, with saracen ending up branding the type of £79.99 BOGOF argos type full suspension affairs.

The early saracens were indeed fantastic, I have a mate that swears by them and rates them over many top hardtails even today.

The newer ones aren't so good. A month or so back a work mate told me he had quite a good saracen I could have if I wanted to fix it up, so after work we went along for a look. Its was a saracen savage, full suss and tbh looked and felt like a catalogue bike, nothing like a saracen of old and certainly nothing special. I declined on his offer as I knew I really wouldn't use it and would just take up space!

I used to work as mechanic/sales in a large sports shop (Sports Division - then became JJB) from '97 - '99. Saracens were our top bikes, so compared to the Emmelle's and other such crap, they were ok. Generally nothing special though. We never had many problems with recalls on them.

I left the year they branched out into full sus with the Havoc/Frenzy (I think...).

I remember an orange box section alu thing that was actually quite light. Didn't seem too bad for the money.

The early fillet brazed Saracens with their bright paint jobs were lovely. Very well specced aswell. Like many decent bikes, I think that they suffered because Halfords sold them.

Don't know anything about modern Saracens.

in 1996 saracen offered easily the best 200 quid bike available

it may have only had a tourney groupset but it offered a cromoly mainframe, which was rare at that price point

cce":g15d2b8z said:

in 1996 saracen offered easily the best 200 quid bike available

it may have only had a tourney groupset but it offered a cromoly mainframe, which was rare at that price point

Click to expand...

Saracen are still doing good £300 bikes, the Element won WMB's bike test a year ago, very well specced for the money & rides pretty well too.

Then there's the £400 Mantra, a good hardcore hardtail, again not a lot matches it for spec at that money

Then the Kili Flyer, which is lush, especially the Carbon frame.

Oh and they do a 653 framed bike too for you steel junkies

A bit like Skoda's, although some of the bikes are pretty poor, there are some good 'uns in the range.

Same goes for Claud Butler too.

Isnt the modern brand Sarasen owned by madison ?