Just got this old beast, its dresed up (decals) as a Scott FX20.
It's Alloy & been badly painted, under which is the original purple, but still no decals.
It looks like an Alpinestars, but not quite! can anyone help identify it?
That isn't an Alpinestars. Don't they all have a slightly curved seattube? I think that around the early to mid 90s a lot of manufacturers experimented with the E-stay design. At one point we even had a Townsend E-stay in our shop! If you think E-stay bikes are flexy you ain't seen nothing until you've seen one of those!
The Alpinestars with elevated rear stays always used a braze-on type front mech, so I'm sure it ain't no Alpinestars. They didn't always use a curved seat-tube, the early ones had a straight one as far as I know and the later ones came with a curved one (1993 and onwards).
My guess would also be a Scott Evolution, but indeed the cable guides are not right.