Grant McLean wrote:
> Stephen,
>
> That story jives with what i've heard.
>
> Some more digging around, and I came up with a contact who
> purchased about 100 of these frame copies. He had been getting
> authentic Gios stuff for a couple of years in small qty's from the
> American distributor shipped to Canada. Around '88 or '89,
> the frames that showed up were suddenly poor quality copies,
> and phone calls to the distributor went unanswered, and then they
> disappeared. This source for these copies was found to be Jim Miele.
> When he went out of business a couple of years later, there were
> all kinds of decals and lugs in boxes in their warehouse.
>
> Earlier I suggested Gardin may have built some frames, but now i'm
> thinking that's not the case. My contact worked at both places,
> and as both guys had gone out of business a couple of times, i think
> i mixed up some parts of the history. He assured me it was Miele.
>
>
Grant,
Any idea if Miele was involved with the Asian made Bianchi's that were distributed in Canada in the late '70s and early '80's? Unlike Italian Bianchi bikes I've seen, the downtube decals were printed one piece on a clear sheet.
What make me ask this question is that in my catacombs I have a Miele frame which appears identical in almost every respect including tubing decal to a "Bianchi" I'm currently converting to a town bike. The differences are confined to branding decals, colour and fork treatment.
Marcus Coles London, Ontario, Canada
Marcus