I'm curious about the frame in this eBay auction. It seems kind of spiffy to me, and I was thinking it might be an interesting frame from which to hang the Regina 1992 group I got from [MENTION=159681]Bianchigirll[/MENTION]. Does anyone have any experience with them? Here are a few questions I have.

• Is it a flexible flyer? While it's roughly my size, I weight about 185, so wonder if it would be too noodly.
• The method of securing the seatpost in the frame seems a bit suspect. Any thoughts on that?
• Do these early-ish bonded aluminum frames have problems with the joints coming unglued?
• Looks like an aluminum fork as well. Hmmm...

I assume Altec was a competitor of ALAN. In a previous iteration of the auction the seller told me that Wenger is not the same company which makes Swiss Army Knives.

Hmmm...as soon as I saw that pic showing the two allen-key screws anchoring the seatpost, I had the same question as you. It doesn't look at all like it would hold well in practice. I once had an SR Litage, similar frame construction, 57cm which was a wet noodle. Could this perform similarly? Maybe.

I have a sneaky suspicion the early screwed-and-glued frames don't hold up to close scrutiny these days. While relatively lightweight for their time, they had bonding separation issues and suffered from cracked lugs, too. I've not seen a lot of them that have survived in as good a condition as this one, but I'd still be wary.

Seems to me you'd basically be risking nearly $300 for a test ride. If you didn't like it, you could probably use the headset, but do you have another 25.0mm seatpost-clamp bike so that you could use the post?

For me it's a risk I wouldn't be willing to take. I've never been a fan of screwed/glued after my experience. YMMV.

DD