Originally Posted by Azle
well here is what I can give for specifics, approx year 88 - 90, Miele Doral, Road Issue Pearl white hand painted pearl white "SIKKENS" frame is 56mm Infinity CR-MO Tapered double butted tubing Tange, 12 speed with EXAGE SPORT front and rear deraillers, EXAGE brakes. so lets have it how would this bike rate in these times.
It sounds like 1988 or 1989. The 1988 specs are a pretty good match, except the only listed colors are blue and black. There is no Doral listed in my literature for 1987 or 1990. I don't have thew 1989 specs, so that might be your year, unless they made a spec (colour) change during 1988.
For 1988, the Doral was 3rd from the bottom in a line-up of 7 "sports racing bicycles". There was another group of 7 "racing" models above these, in addition to 7 "City, Commuter and Mountain" models. I don't have the 1988 prices, but the 1990 Volta, which appears to have been its replacement was listed at $460 CDN. It would proably be considered as a upper, entry level or lower, mid range model. All the ones I have experience with were well made and good value for their respective price range.
Originally Posted by luker
yo, marty! you mean Miele didn't torch the frames himself?
Pictures I've seen of Miele's shop show what appears to be a conveyor line process. The picture clearly shows 3 different people brazing frames, though there are at least 5 brazing stations visible, with the possibility that two brazers are just out of the picture. The jigs and frames appear to have the capability to move from station to station, so it's not clear if each brazer manufactured an entire frame, or if he handled only one operation before forwarding it to the next brazer.
I don't know if Jim did any brazing himself, but I do know that his previous industry experience was in distribution for his father's company and most Miele models were mass produced, so I doubt it. Most early Mieles were manufactured in Japan and Taiwan, though I've also seen one that, if I recall correctly, was manufactured by Rossin. In 1985 he enticed Guiseppe Ferrara, a reknowed designer and framebuilder, to come to Canada. the following year they opened a new, state of the art Canadian facility with capacity for 30,000 bicycles annually. The company eventually folded in the early 1990s, with Procyle resurrecting the brand name in 2002. Jim passed away, early in 2003.
There's definitely an Italian connection. Jim was born and grew up in Italy, until he emmigrated to Canada at age 14. His father's distributorship handled Italian bicycles. He apparently had a business relationship with Rossin and he employed an Italian as his head designer.