Shrevvy 

Got my Appel on the road for the first time this year after getting it cleaned up. I wanted to take a few pictures before the white bar tape gets dirty. The twilight messes with the colors a bit. The bike is much redder than the pictures show. It looks more orange in the pics. The white bar tape really pops in person too (that should last about a week). I am really pleased with this bike.

Shrevvy 

As found late last summer...the wheels, while still Shimano 600, were off a Specialized Allez. The Appel tires were dry rotted. Even though it was dirty and needed attention, I still wanted to give it a spin last year. Looking at my close up pics above, I need to go over the lugs again and get the last of the crud from the frame. I think red bikes might be faster...

markwesti

Nice looking bike Shrevvy , the red and white looks good . The black hoods are a nice contrast . Never heard of a Apple , info ?

Chrome Molly

Nice Appel. I really like mine.

Shrevvy 

Mike Appel was one of the early Trek frame builders before going out on his own (there is a great pic of Mike and Dick Nolan on the front page of vintage-trek.com). I don’t think he made very many frames under his own brand. @JohnDThompson could probably tell a lot more.

Shrevvy 

Very nice. I saw an earlier frame than mine in yellow, which looked great. Mine is dated 8-18-86 on the bottom bracket. Does yours have a date?

Chrome Molly

Mine is 3-15-89

It’s what is referred to as a “limited production” model. Apparently with fewer options than the full custom frames, but a fantastic riding bike nonetheless.

martl

Mine says 10 1995, so Mike seems to have built at least a few frames over a longer period of time. Do yours have the "M.Appel" signature sticker on the top tube?

Red *is* faster. of course it is!

The Golden Boy 

Sweet bike!

KonAaron Snake 

It doesn't suck, that's for sure. Makes me want fruit...

Need to get a Strawberry to go with it.

rando_couche

The metalwork on that frame is GORGEOUS!!

JohnDThompson 

Here are some pictures I took at an exhibit of Appel's work at the Cronometro shop in Madison WI a couple years ago:

https://www.os2.dhs.org/~john/appel

Chombi1 

Lovely bike!! The awesome (and rare) Assos crankset is fine icing on the......pie!
A example from a great Amercan builder from the golden bike era of the 80's!

The Golden Boy 

I was on the verge of making apple/fruit puns- but didn’t want to drag this off kilter.

madpogue 

Dang, was Mike there? I wish I'd known about this.

It'd be fun to tell him about @martl's bike; he'd be pleased to see one of his works made it across the pond.

Little-known physics fact - red is not actually faster. It just makes everything else in the universe move slower relatively.

JohnDThompson 

No, he wasn't there when I saw the exhibit.

I believe @martl is Martin Appel. I gave Martin some information about Mike when he bought the bike several years ago. He was amused that it shared the same surname with him. And I told Mike about Martin's purchase and the bike going overseas when I saw Mike at the Cronometro swap later that year.

madpogue 

+1; I found Martin's bike on classicrendezvous, and it looks to be the same.

Something tells me that if the two M. Appels spent enough time on ancestry.com.......

martl

thanks for the kind words viz my bike, i do think the other two are stunning as well. MA is a builder who seems to have delivered work on a constant perfectionist level regarding the lugwork, the brazin, and the paint (not to be neglected) few others have done.
Yes, its the same; i've been on the cr mailinglist for a long time now and i sometimes sent Dale a few pics. I'm mostly lurking these days, though. I think one of my other bikes may be on the website, too, the Automoto. The list has been incredibly helpful, and it is actually where i found the Appel, which was on my bucketlist a long time because of the quality, the understatement and of course the name
No shared ancestry that i would know of, though. Some relative of mine migrated to the US in the early 1900s, but to California and they are all accounted for; no framebuilder among them, alas. The name isn't all too uncommon over here, it sems to be from the german/czechian/poland border region, and of there, a few million went to the Chi area afaik..

Ha! Great news, didn't know Mike was aware of the whereabouts of my frame Would love to talk to him for a few minutes, sometime; it has a bit of an odd geometry (very long top tube) which i would like to know more about.
i actually spent a few months in Chicago in 2000 but i hadn't known about Appel bikes then. Wish i had!

Feldman

Appel's frames have the best looking seat stay caps I've ever seen--even better than Bernard Carre.

velomateo

Nice. I have a space in the garage reserved for an Appel...when one shows up in my size.

NickyLazer

Holy cow! My Appel is in your pictures. It's the purple/pink fade Special Custom that's partially built (white toe strap holding front wheel). An acquaintance in Madison needed to free up some funds so that frame now lives in Boulder, CO. It's getting the newest Ultegra kit shortly. Can't wait to ride it. I grew up in WI, worked at YJ, and built/sold a few Appels when I was there. At that time, I was riding Ritcheys but always lusted over the Appels. Glad that one is mine now.

bg18947

I do have an Appel and a Strawberry. :-)

bg18947

I got an Appel which I ordered in 1982 Metallic Dark Charcoal Imron. I can't post pictures yet because I'm a newbie. I just replaced the 39 year old Vittoria tubulars with fresh Conties and waxed it up. It does not have a serial number. It's got the older Davida font for the apple logo. A on head tube and APPEL vertically on both sides of the seat tube.

cb400bill

If you add those pics to your Gallery we can then post them for you.

bg18947

I did manage to add two albums to the Gallery. Not sure if they are showing. New to this forum.