Barale bikes, frames and other bits such as a modified Brooks Barale saddle turn up on Ebay from time to time and always prevoke the same questions about the company and its origins.
It was just about two years ago that a BARALE prompted an almost identical question. I posted a reasonably argued response to the List on 23 September 2007..and have noted that it is still in the CR Archive along with various other questions and replies.
There have been four members of the Barale family who have been Pro cyclists at one time or another, two of whom have a reasonable plamares ie Germano and Guiseppe (no2); the other Barales are Florido and Guiseppe (No1)
Guiseppe No 1 is the character responsible for this frame or at least for the cycle shop that sold it. Guiseppe was born in the town of Bordighera in norther Italy in 1905 and died after a lifetime spent riding, racing and selling bikes in 1996. HIs shop was, perhaps still is in Ventimiglia another small coastal town on the western end of the Italian Riviera.
Bordighera means "border"...and the town is the last one to be passed through for anyone travelling west along the coast before they meet up with the customs barrier and post at the French border, not far from Menton. Ventimiglia means "twenty miles "..and the town of Ventimiglia is about that distance from the frontier travelling east. So Guiseppe No 1 never really strayed far from home.
As far as I can gather the shop has been around for some time, and it is possible that Barale in years gone by would have been in competition with that oother famous Riviera=based frame-builder URAGO who shop, in NIce, was just a nice bike ride away.
The story gets complicated as there was another Barale bike company - a French one based in central France and one example has turned up on this List when it was bought by CR Lister Simon Wyndham-Jones a few years back. This frame carried the name Britannia..so does anyone want to draw the conclusion that one of the Barale brothers strayed into the volcanic region of the Massif Central in the Auvergne, took French citizenship as Francesco Urago and Gianni Marcarini and several others had done, met up with and married an English woman..and decided to use the Britannia, the British version of France's national image, Marianne, as an emblem on his bikes..
Not long agao a very special Barale frame..a very French-looking one turned up on French Ebay complet with transfers, addresses etc, but the seller would not ship it and I was not due back in the country for a while so I missed it.
The Barale that just sold on French Ebay for a measly 49 euros or thereabouts is definitely a CIOCC-made one and will have hailed from the Ventimiglia shop. The seller tokitvelo lives just in the hinterland of the French riviera not too far from the Franco-Italian border. I have a complete Barale bike with the Ventimiglia metal headbadge..and it is 100% Italian build..could be anyone of at least fifty Italian manufacturers..but very nice as well.
I was about to bid on the recent Barale, but lost track of it...then when I found it my computer crashed...so another nice one got away.
Hope this helps.
Norris Lockley, Settle....too far away from the French Riviera, north of England..and too near Scotland