In light of recent enthusiasm for the topic, I thought it fitting to attempt an answer to the oft-asked question, "What is Gugificazione?" The simple answer that it's a sort of bike modification is akin to saying that "it's a violin" is a suitable answer to the question "What is a Stradivarius?" No, to appreciate what Gugificazione truly is, we must seek to know something about the man behind the modifications. We must dig deep to uncover the legend.

Our story begins in the 1920's in the hills of northern Italy. At that time and in that place there was a small Benedictine monastery which was home to a young friar named Gugie. This particular monastery was dedicated to serving the people of the small villages in the Piedmont region. Every day the monks and friars would mount bicycles and travel to the surrounding villages offering to help the local people with common tasks, from gardening to household appliances repair, even sometimes servicing small machinery at the local factories before returning to the monastery for prayer and reflection.

Friar Gugie applied himself diligently to his daily work, yet somehow he found his soul was unfulfilled. Unfulfilled, that is, until one fateful day when he was returning his tools to the cellarer only to find the cellarer was too ill to perform his usual duties, asking Friar Gugie to return the tools to the shed himself. While doing so the young friar discovered, in a dark, long-neglected corner of the tool shed, a brazing torch. Finding himself curiously drawn to the instrument, the young friar brought it back to the ill cellarer to inquire as to its purpose. The old monk informed him that the torch had once been used to build the monastery's bicycles but that it hadn't been needed in years. The bicycles were very well built.

With much pleading, Friar Gugie obtained permission to take the brazing torch back to his cell to see if he might learn to use it. Begging a supply of brass, oxygen and acetylene from a local factory, young Gugie quickly began to master his craft. Despite repeated admonishments from the abbot about the dangers of infatuation, the determined friar spent all of his free time working with the torch.

Before long every bicycle in the monastery had been fitted with a custom front rack. Not satisfied with the handling of the bikes under their daily load, Gugie began to experiment with modifying the trail of the forks. Seeking cleaner lines, he obsessed over the fender attachment points. This obsession with bikes consumed more and more of his time until finally the abbot could see no alternative but to expel him from the monastery for the good of all who remained. Fearing for the salvation of the other monks, the abbot sent the torch with him.

Distraught, but happy to have been allowed to keep his beloved brazing torch, the young man traveled to the nearest village where he set up a makeshift shop in an abandoned dairy barn. The villagers had little use for bicycle customizations but remembering his work on their household appliances and small machinery they provided him with alms.

Seeing that the villagers, though kind, were not bringing their bicycles to him for customization, Gugie became desperate. He began sneaking into the village late at night and snatching bicycles to bring back to his shop to go under the torch. It was now the only life he could imagine living. Many a morning a Piedmont citizen awoke to find his bicycle had undergone the process we now know as Gugificazione.

At first the villagers tolerated this eccentricity, but in time they found that they could take no more. When a local farmer awoke to find his bike adorned with pump pegs that weren't suitable for display in polite company he organized a mob who came with pitchforks, rakes, and, ironically, torches to drive our Gugie across the border into France.

In France, Mssr. Gugie, as he came to be known, found a more receptive audience for his work. The French people had a profound appreciation for his front racks and low trail forks. In turn, the French introduced Mssr. Gugie to 650B wheels and center pull brakes. It was an idyllic time.

Sadly, it was not to last. With the German invasion in 1940, Mssr. Gugie packed a trunk with his trusty brazing torch and a cache of French bike bells and sought sanctuary in England. Feeling as he did a strong affinity with the French, Mssr. Gugie wanted to contribute in some way to the Allied war effort, tinkering with some ideas for brazing on useful additions to various arms and munitions, but due to his obvious Italian heritage he was viewed with much suspicion and sunk back into obscurity.

During his exile in England, Mssr. Gugie developed an appreciation for English bicycles. Although their construction was frequently sloppy, these bicycles proved to be an excellent platform for Gugificazione, and Mssr. Gugie found that with enough care they could be transformed into works of art.

Following the war, as the Americans were executing Operation Paperclip, an unknown American Colonel mistakenly identified Mssr. Gugie as a strategically important Axis scientist and he was swept up and inserted into the American military-industrial complex. This had the fortuitous side effect of providing Gugie with a regular paycheck while allowing him to continue his work in a setting that allowed him considerable freedom from expectations of useful productivity.

Eventually (some say as much as 20 years later) the mistake was discovered, and Mssr. Gugie was unceremoniously deposited into mainstream society. He attempted to find employment in the American bicycle industry, but said industry at the time had eschewed brazing in favor of electrical methods of joining bicycle tubes.

Returning to the skills developed in his youth, Gugie found work maintaining industrial machinery, but he continued to experiment on evenings and weekends in his small private workshop, producing some of the finest customized bicycles the world has ever known. Yet, sadly, his work is known only to the lucky few who have happened to cross his path.

These few beneficiaries of the master’s work have sought to commemorate and celebrate his art by having the bikes he has touched emblazoned with the label, “GUGIFICAZIONE!”

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