A rare non-Panasonic frame for me...

[zeringer]

I picked this Atala frame and fork up nearly 5 years ago now and it was in rather sorry shape at the time. I had stripped the paint long ago but it just hung around in my storage room until a few weeks ago when I decided it needed some color.

Before:

Stripped:

After:

Just hanging around once again awaiting the future...

I'm still not certain what I will do with it but at least it is no longer sitting around "naked".

 

[Midlife]

Nice..........I wore Atala shoes in my riding days in the 70's, I wonder if there is a connection.

I worked at the Malcolm Moos Health Sciences Tower in Minneapolis 20 years ago.... I tried hard to get a job in the States but failedf

Shaun

 

[zeringer]

I would suspect your Atala shoes were related. Atala is a fairly large maker of bicycles in Italy although most were/are lower end.

You worked at the U of MN? What did you do there? (And what kind of work were/are you looking for in the States?)

 

[Elev12k]

Strange brand within your collection. A nice frame however. I like the blue. Chapeua, good job.

 

[Midlife]

Zeinger

I'm a dentist........well in those days I would be called an associate professor in operative dentistry in your lingo.

Step back 20 years and actually getting a job in the US was a nightmare due to the restrictive nature of the situation, let alone bring in the family..

and as for Canada LOL

Shaun

 

[zeringer]

Strange brand within your collection. A nice frame however. I like the blue. Chapeua, good job.

It is very strange for me. I always wanted a nice Italian Columbus SLX tubed frame and I just happened to stumble across this one in an online classified. Atala is quite rare here in the States so it seemed like a great buy at the low asking price.

I originally wanted to chrome the rear stays but the estimates for having that done were rather obscene. In the end I stripped it and had it powder coated in Cobalt Blue for a nice durable finish.

 

[American Friend]

In the late 60s and early 70s, Atala were not rare where I grew up in the States. In amateur racing circles in New York you were more likely to see someone riding an Atala than a Schwinn Paramount. My memory may be wrong, but I think at that time they were probably the most popular Italian racing bikes, at least in New York. An SLX frame would have been from a later period when there were a lot of other Italian bikes that flooded the US market and Atala became much less popular.

edit: just noticed you wrote 1990. I would have said mid to late 1980s. Certainly by then, Atala's presence in the US was a shadow of its early 1970s heyday. Nice job you've done, though.

 

[zeringer]

In the late 60s and early 70s, Atala were not rare where I grew up in the States. In amateur racing circles in New York you were more likely to see someone riding an Atala than a Schwinn Paramount. My memory may be wrong, but I think at that time they were probably the most popular Italian racing bikes, at least in New York. An SLX frame would have been from a later period when there were a lot of other Italian bikes that flooded the US market and Atala became much less popular.

edit: just noticed you wrote 1990. I would have said mid to late 1980s. Certainly by then, Atala's presence in the US was a shadow of its early 1970s heyday. Nice job you've done, though.

The importer for Atala was there in the NYC area (I forget the name) and I have heard that they were a fairly common sight in that area as a result.

Of course, the Atala cycling team was also quite famous during the 80's.

In the midwest U.S. where I grew up, I had never even heard of or seen an Atala *ever*. I didn't even know they existed until seeing them listing in a Bicycling Magazine buyer's guide issue sometime in the late 80's. I stumbled across this frame and fork in a Kansas City, MO Craigslist ad which was a rare sight as well. I should have asked the seller if he had any ties to NY.

 

[American Friend]

They were imported by Stuyvesant Bikes, which was the bike shop in the city back then. I used to go in there as a kid and drool over the bikes. After high school, one of my best friends worked there as a mechanic. There was also a guy up in Spanish Harlem who was the importer of Legnano and Frejus. Both long gone now, alas. However, the bike scene in NYC has been going through an incredible revival in recent years, and cool bike shops have seemingly sprouted up everywhere, even in neighbo(u)hoods that used to be total no-go zones, but I digress. Must be age.

 

[luckyskull76]

hello, not wishing to hi-jack......just starting to put together this little find. trying to gather some info and maybe some pictures of how it was built.

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... 70#1646770