Hi Dave,
Hey, no disrespect to you or your bike... I am surprised that 3 or 4 listmembers actually emailed me saying they own one! See Steve Maaslands post about shady money dealing, and slimey dealers. On the product side, there where a lot of lies about what their bikes were made of. A painter friend of mine has seen may of these bikes stripped, and YIKES. A fillet brazed bike was actually tig welded, with auto bondo filler, others were seamed tubing... it goes on and on... That's why they were so cheap.. But i'm sure lots of frames were actually nice, and built of what they were supposed to be. They just seemed to cut corners where ever possible, (on components too, waht the catalog said didn't matter, headsets, bb's, pedals were often down graded, thinking the customer wouldn't notice) and so the whole thing left a bad taste with the local pro shops. All that aside... I've seen/worked on hundreds of them over the years, and the workmanship on the vast majority is ugly. But they are bikes after all, and if they've ridden well, then great!
Marinoni bikes were/are very nice bikes. Yes, they are built in the 'high volume' and 'low craft' tradition, but I've always thought of him as the "canadian colnago". Great race bikes. My money was always on Gilles Bertrand. Nice 80's bikes! Mariposa bikes have always been rare, even now here in Toronto, and not in production on a consistant basis over the years, but the visually, very 70's, and the nicest bikes Canada has produced. IMHO
Grant
-----Original Message----- From: Dave Patrick [mailto:Patrick@aardvark-pro.com] Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 9:47 AM To: 'Grant McLean' Subject: RE: [CR]Gardin, now Miele
Grant,
Ouch! I rode a Miele for a while, as I bought it from the one of the U.S. wholesalers (Sinclair)and thought it was a very good bike for a very good price. It was an SL frame w/Campy Chorus. I don't know, that bike was good to me and I rode/raced it quite a bit, and when I had a very bad crash once while racing, Jim Miele and his wife (Vicky?) were kind enough to send me a replacement frame for $100 Canadian, about $65 US. Not too bad. I still have that Miele in the basement and ride it as a beater once in a while, especially in the rain. So what made Miele and Gardins so distasteful? What were the thoughts about Marinoni frames?
Dave Patrick Chelsea, Michigan
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