Originally Posted by
Drillium Dude
Agreed, 1983 is too early. In 1983, Specialized only had two models, the Sequoia (touring) and Allez (racing) and they were both lugged steel.
Their lugged carbon frames were coming in around 1985/1986 and the earliest had the black clearcoated main tubes with polished aluminum lugs. Beautiful bikes! If I were to ever go with crabon, that would be the frame for me
DD
I am pretty sure that the Carbon Allez frames were not introduced until 1988 or maybe even into 1989. I remember there was a lot of press coverage/hype when specialized first released them and I had a friend/teammate in collage that bought one as soon as they were available. They were very affordable BITD compared to similar carbon offerings from LOOK, VITUS, TVT, ALAN etc...
Most everyone of the racers I knew of that rode the early specialized frames from first couple years of production experienced lug/tube bond failures that specialized replaced under warranty.