There's more in the archives, but local Maryland builder/racer Fred Kelly built custom Alpines from the very late 70's into the early-to-mid 80's. During that time, a house-mate of mine had a custom Kelly-built pearl-pink frame that I'd love to track down. Fred is still in the area (or was several years ago), and maintains a list of serial numbers of frames he built. He also was willing to provide decals to those who had his Alpine frames. Someday I'd like to know the details of the Alpine name and the relationship between GTCS and Fred. The last time I talked with Fred, which was quite a number of years ago now, he wouldn't discuss it, but clearly had some "issues" about it.
Wayne Bingham Lovettsville VA USA
On Dec 17, 2007 9:56 AM, Tom Dalton <tom_s_dalton@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I just want to add to this week-old message, that by the early 80's Alpine later was actually making their own frames... but this is not one of them. I'm with Dale that it's a rebadged British bike. In addition to the brands Dale mentions, I think some Alpines were MKM. Of course, the decals were stuck on anything that any GTCS employee or Alpine Team rider was using, and that included plenty of Serottas, a Cotten, an Aschemacher.... So, there are "actual Alpines," from the 80's, earlier bikes that were re-badged and sold as Alpines, and bikes that were never sold as Alpines but that simply bore the decals because of team or shop affiliations. When Alpine closed shop, a friend of a friend eneded up with a bunch (all) of the old decals. Some went to my froiend, and then to me, and ended up on a Centurion that I sold to a Mennonite kid at a swap meet. Anyway, look closely once you see the decals.
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> By the way, it's my understanding that GTCS provided a bunch of spare Alpine bikes to the Junior World's Road Championships held in Washington D.C. in 1978.
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> Tom Dalton
> Bethlehem PA USA
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> The Ebay Alpine:
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> http://ebay.com/
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> Dalr wrote:
> I am betting that is a Condor or Mercian... This was the MO for Georgetown Cycles, the shop where Larry Black started his career & the shop who owned that brand....
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> Dale Brown
> Greensboro, North Carolina USA
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