With respect to those early Mossberg Racelite carbon fiber bikes, I have only seen one of them in person and that was about fifteen years ago while riding through Marymoor Park near the "Group Death" velodrome, just off the Burke-Gilman in Redmond, Washington. They are very easy to pick out from a distance what with their fastback style rear stays paired with an additional set of stays which run from the rear dropout to a point on the top tube roughly six inches in front of the seat post, thereby forming a sort of inner parallelogram in support of the frameset main triangle. Yet another one popped up for sale (...originally being offered from somewhere in the Dixie South, if I remember correctly) on eBay about a year and a half ago that was a suitably sized 60 cm model, but I ended up as the second in line underbidder in that particular auction (...I do not suppose that the winning bidder would happen to be a CR List member who is willing to share pictures of their bike?). I have absolutely no idea how many of those Racelite bicycles were actually made (...Mossberg offered both a road and track version - and how rare must that Pista be?), but I would be willing to speculate that their total number was likely only in the several hundreds.
Robert "squinting hard while looking into his crystal ball" Broderick ...the "Frozen Flatlands" of South Dakota Sioux Falls, USA
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From: oroboyz@aol.com
>To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>Subject: [CR]Was: Alan-carbon. Now: Mossberg
>Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 08:39:19 -0400
>
>
> Robert wrote:
>
><< Mossberg ....(snip)...was actually the first carbon fiber
>bike to hit the market back in 1974. And while this is generally accepted
>to be the first bicycle of its type available for sale to the public at
>large >>
>
>Thinking back to that era, I saw the Mossberg ads but never a real bike.
>Act
>ually I don't even remember seeing those bikes at the NY or Fla bike shows
>e
>ither although they must have been on display! Being always the skeptic, I
>w
>onder how many of those actually made it onto the asphalt.
>
>Do any of us have a Mossberg carbon bike? Seen one in use with your very
>own
> eyes?
>
>Dale Brown
>Greensboro, North Carolina USA
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: R.S. Broderick <rsb000@hotmail.com>
>To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>Cc: watts.gary@gmail.com
>Sent: Sun, 19 Aug 2007 10:16 pm
>Subject: RE: [CR]History of Alan-carbon
>
>Gary,
>
>First off, I would concur with Chuck's caveat regarding PR-Department
>written corporate histories.
>
>With respect to U.S. offerings, Mossberg (...yes, the same Mossberg that is
>perhaps better known for its rifles - both Mossberg and Browning jumped
>into
>the "bike biz" during the 1970's boom) was actually the first carbon fiber
>bike to hit the market back in 1974. And while this is generally accepted
>to be the first bicycle of its type available for sale to the public at
>large, several other one-off or prototype examples actually preceded it
>(...Grafalloy Composite and A-C Cycleworks specifically, although I am not
>sure that either of these efforts made it into full scale production). As
>for the Graftek, it was initially only available to Cool Gear / Exxon team
>members (...John Howard, and brothers Wayne and Dale Stetina, among others)
>who promptly set about racking up many a win throughout the 1976 racing
>season using their new "wunder-bike" (...including the 1976 National Road
>Championship - a feat repeated in 1977). The Graftek G-1 frameset itself
>was not made available to the general public until August of 1976, a little
>over two years after the carbon fiber Mossberg had first hit the market.
>That said, I think that one would be accurate in stating that the Graftek
>G-1 was the first "commercially successful" carbon fiber bicycle to be sold
>stateside (...although I suppose that one could quibble over that word
>"successful", if only with respect to the total sales numbers achieved by
>this ultra-expensive for its time niche-market bike) inasmuch as the
>Mossberg offering was a sales flop by all accounts, due in no small part to
>the fact that the Snyder Manufacturing plant where it was built was
>destroyed by fire in 1975 and bicycle production thereafter was never
>resumed.
>
>Robert "Exxon Graftek G-1 owner" Broderick
>...the "Frozen Flatlands" of South Dakota
>Sioux Falls, USA
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >From: "Gary Watts" <watts.gary@gmail.com>>
> >To: "Classic Rendezvous" <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> >Subject: [CR]History of Alan-carbon
>
> >Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2007 15:00:43 -0700
>
> >Mentioned is that Alan introduced the first commercial carbon frame to
>the
> >public. Wasn't Graphtek the first as in mid 1970's?
>
> >Gary Watts
>
> >Vancouver, Washington
> >USA