In response to a valued blog reader's inquiry as to the year of his red 80's Specialized Allez SE frame, I went ahead and did a little research to see if I could help out.
A while back, I posted some pics of a similar '85 Allez SE that I sold. The year was an educated guess based on 1) The scan above from my 1985 Suntour Service Manual and 2) American Flyers was released in 1985 and I figured Specialized would've provided them with their latest model.
Since I have another red Allez of the same era that's waiting a restoration job from me with what I believe to be the original components, I went digging for some date codes. The easiest one to find was off the rear derailleur (BD), which the excellent resources at vintage-trek.com dates to 1985!
Now, a few disclaimers here. Although I'm still pretty sure these red Allez's 1985 models, I have seen examples where component date codes precede the model year of the bike. For example, my 1987 Allez's Turbo saddle has an 86 date stamped on it (although I believe the original Sprint derailleur is dated to 1987.) It's certainly possible I have a 1986 model but I have no information to confirm nor deny that these red Allez's were still being produced that year. By the same token, perhaps someone out there has an example with 1984 date codes on them. Dunno... makes my head spin just thinking about it... I'm just going to refer to these Allez's as 1985's!
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