kcebcire

Unfortunately the internet is devoid of any information on these bikes.
I have a (probably) late 80's early 90's Miele Cicli, with a full SunTour Sprint 9000 group, cinelli stem and handlebars. Its in amazing condition, rides beautifully, with columbus cromor tubing. There is no serial number however, I've looked everywhere.

Any info on these?
I think its missing the head tube decal, and possibly the matching non-drive side top tube decal, but im not 100% sure.

sauze

Canadian made with Italian Heritage

from wikipedia

"Miele is a bicycle manufacturing division of Procycle Group Inc. of Saint-Georges, Quebec, Canada.
Miele bicycles were originally manufactured by the Guvin Company beginning in 1982 in Mississauga, Ontario. The company was founded by Jim Miele and several family partners. Miele had immigrated from Italy.
The company originally manufactured quality Italian style road bikes. They even sponsored a local Giro in their native Italy. Later the company diversified to produce a wide spectrum of bicycles including children, city and mountain bikes.
Prospering for many years it began to face difficult times when cheap Chinese bicycles began to enter the Canadian market in the early 1990s driving profits down. Faced with this competition the company went into bankruptcy ceasing operations in 1996.
"
Do a Bforums search for Miele Cicli , some OK results. Looks like this was an upper-mid end model? Double Butted Tubing?

Bianchigirll 

that is a great looking wannabee Bianchi I never saw many but they are nice bike unfortuantely they do not have the panache of a Pinarello or Geurcotii, Bottechia,

is that a Matrix frame? my understand is Trek threw a hissy fit that Columbus used that neame so it became CroMor.

Picchio Special

Why on earth would they? They're not Italian, they're Canadian. In any case, they're not as nicely built as the good Pinarellos, or the better Guerciottis, from what I've seen. They're good donor frames for gruppos and frame resale.

Bianchigirll 

perhaps I should have been clearer. I did not mean to say this bike was the equal of a top of the line Pinerello, Guerciotti or Bottechia but the few I saw seemed like good bikes. how much better is a CroMor Bottechia with RX 100 than this bike? if you got a Miele with a Gara frame and 105 parts for $50 would you toss the frame and put the 105 on a trek 460?

perhaps I should have said they are not as well known as a one of the bikes I listed

kcebcire

I think you should take a good look at a higher end miele if you see one, which this one is. The frame is EXCELLENTLY made, with every attention to detail.

Besides, Im looking for information on the model etc, not for you to tell me its not as good as something else. The bike rides amazing, and I love it.

mr_sinister

Hi kcebcire, I just picked up one of these as a bare frame. Do you think you can provide me with a high-res photo of the Columbus decals on the seat tube and fork blades? Mine is missing those decals and I'm thinking of getting a reproduction set.

My frame also has a decal on the seat tube near the bottom bracket, which says something like "SIKKENS hand painted". Does your bike have this as well?

I can provide a photo of the head tube decal, if that sort of thing interests you.

jet sanchEz

The point is that your Miele was painted that colour in order to make it appealing to someone who would want a Bianchi but could not afford it. We are all happy that you like it.

dookie

i had a cromor miele as a 'first real bike', and it was fantastic. tri-color 600 ultegra 7sp downtube shifters. purchased ~'86, stolen in ~'93. not artisan work, but still very nicely put together. paint quality was *way* better than anything out of italy at the time. chrome fork was classy.

yours looks very clean and there is absolutely no reason to pass on the frame, although if i were looking, it would be for the sl / slx version. cromor is the same alloy, but starts life as a flat sheet and is rolled into a tube (with a seam), instead of being drawn out as a tube play-doh style.

dayles

i worked at the factory and I was there when this model was built. I probably set the gears on it and boxed it. Maybe did a bit of quality control. The shop was pretty efficient, tha frame was "hand built" in Mississauga and if you were lucky, you got Silvio Serenho to work on it. He was the maestro. The paint job was probably done by a couple of guys from Trinidad. They were awesome. We used to strip old frames when Jim wasn't looking and then beg him to let us paint it... Okay he said nut only one colour! Mine was white and I decked it out with Shimano 105... The chain I put together from Dura Ace sections that were too long. There were some real bike enthusiasts in there. i ended up owning an Elite and I loved that bike. Sadly both bikes have been stolen. If you ever want to sell this one, I'll take it off your hands... What size is it?

Wileyone 

"wannabee Bianchi"?? Mieles could be hit and miss. Like a lot of Mfg's. Some of the Italian made ones were outstanding. I have a Canadian made Equipe full SLX and Dura Ace and it has absolutely no desire to be a Bianchi.
To the OP that is a nice Bicycle not top of the line but with a great group set. Mieles can come in at bargain prices. If your in Toronto that's a 3-$400 Bile.

thinktubes 

Zombi3

Wileyone 

lol missed that.

Ex Pres 

Great to have some real Miele first-hand knowledge on here. I'm currently putting together a 1990 Gara, though not quite back to factory specs. Did you happen to set the gears on mine?

jet sanchEz

Very interesting, any more stories of the Miele factory to share? Did you ever work at the Gardin factory?

dayles

I never worked at Gardin, but I bought one and it took forever to get it to me. (Took along time to save for it too.) I honestly can't remember how I got the job at Miele. I drove in, said I love bikes and got hired, I used to live down in dodgy Parkdale and I rode the Gardin to the factory. It took quite a while to get there. And when I got there... all the guys were like... "What a piece of garbage etc." It wasn't really cool to ride a Gardin to the factory. Jim grabbed it one day and said... "I know where this belongs..." and started to head it into the garbage container, but then he laughed about it. He had an okay sense of humour at times. But, he was the boss and did whatever he thought he needed to do to get the place to doing what he wanted or needed. We would play hockey in between the rows of bikes that were stockpiled waiting for orders and once the game got pretty intense and Jim let us go about 10 minutes extra over lunch. He also joked that we'd have to pay for it etc. But that never happened. You know, it was a factory and any factory can be pretty grim at times. There were some cool guys there though.

dayles

1990 model - could have. I did many a Gara, but I think I missed the boat on that one. Does it have shifters in the brake levers? I left the factory just as these were starting to hit the stores.

Ex Pres 

Down tube on this one, with the interesting drilled handlebars for internal cable routing. Haven't decided if I'm reusing those yet.

dayles

you sure it's a 1990? that down shifter says its earlier to me but I could be wrong.

cbutler

Here's a weird story. Years ago, my wife bought a blue Bianchi with Shimano 600 group. Last winter, I bought a blue Miele with Shimano 600 also. When I showed my new Miele to my wife she said the paint was identical to her Bianchi. We put the bikes side by side and the paint was identical. Later, after removing the rear wheel of the Miele, I had a close look at the rear drop-out. It said Bianchi!

Both bikes were made in Japan, and very well made. It seems that both Bianchi and Miele had at least some frames, perhaps whole bikes, made by the same Japanese contractor. Japanese frames don't get the respect they deserve.

I have a Miele Beta frame I think. It's a mid-range model, but, it has similar geometry to steel Colnagos, I'm looking forward to building the bike up someday.

AngryFrankie

True Wileyone. I think I've got the same bike, SLX Equipe. They really got it right on that one. Thanks for sharing dayles. It's like a big mystery, getting info about Miele. There is a great magazine article scanned on the web. I can't seem to find it, but did just see this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP6sonMKc7I

dayles

Interesting... Miele used all kinds of different dropouts - Whatever the ordering was to get a good deal, but some real quality ones as well. Superbe Pro, Cinnelli, etc. The thing was, at one point the competition started to stiffen. The mountain bike era started up and in came frames from Giant to Canada. We had a shipment or two that came in from there to the factory and then were tripped out as Miele bikes, so that could have been the case with your Bianchi, but I don't think so somehow. To me it would be someone taking off the labels and making a Bianchi out of a Miele. If it has the dropouts, it doesn't mean it's a Bianchi necessarily. I agree about the geometry and the Japanese frames as well, the same with Suntour Superbe Pro... awesome stuff, but it got little respect.

randyjawa 

You should have a good look at this one. Italian, all the way, built in Italy and built by an Italian, for a Canadian bicycle manufacturer...



The lesser Miele bicycles, were, often times, very nicely built, also...



The lower end units, nice but pretty much like lower end Italian, French and English offerings...



All that said, who said that Italian bikes are so special? In my book, some of the nicer riding bikes came from France and, for what it is worth, the nicest riding vintage road bicycle, I have ever owned and ridden was/is a Canadian built Cyclops...

One thing I have learned - country and citizenship have little to do with a really nice bike. Make and model mean little also(guess that is actually two things learned:-)

big chainring 

O Canada
Our home and native land
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

blakcloud

Here is the deal with that one. Jim Miele was the owner of a distribution company called Guvin who had the rights to Bianchi in Canada. Jim Miele figured out he could import the same bikes but his name on them and save the consumer money. Typically they were painted different colours and that was the only difference and of course the price. The Miele's were much better value for your dollar.

Bianchi caught wind and stopped their deal with Guvin but by then Miele was well established. Later Miele stops importing bikes from the Far East and starts building them in Mississauga. Unfortunately this came to a sad end but it was great until lasted. Some of first top tier Miele's were made in Italy and shipped to Canada. They even made some really nice fillet brazed mountain bikes that we sold through our shop. I hope some day to see one of these in the wild.

Miele made a wide range of bikes, from the basic to full fledged criterium racing bikes. The Miele today is name only.