Growing up in the early 80's I had a Schwinn because my grandpa was a Schwinn rep for 20+ years from the mid fifties onward; my dad and 2 of his brothers were often used in sale pitches, but my dad didn't like even the Paramount once he started to get into his late teens. Not only that but you had all of them about to get full athletic scholarships but were getting beat at velos by guys with... yup, Italian bikes. There also were plenty of custom framebuilders (seemingly) in Italy that would build to suit but not in the US at the time. I remember him and my one uncle both drooling over early steel Trek's and my dad got one for touring whereas my one uncle heard the siren song of this new aluminum frame from some upstart company called Cannondale and went that direction. My dad went on a bike trip across NY back in like '86, but didn't want to use the Trek for some reason, and came back to his place one day with a Belgian frame who's name I can't remember, and I remember him showing me the stays and the tubing and how it was put together and why it was better and lighter than even his Trek and how he would've gone with an Italian bike but at 6'4:, 225# most of them were not making frames to fit him. On another trip however, he met with some guy from West Germany who was bikepacking across the area with a custom Italian bike that was the same size as my dad, and they rode back to Buffalo and actually did a bike swap once they took off their saddles and panniers.
Fast forward to today and there's lot's of great frame builders both here and abroad. I have some Jamis's that I adore, but they're all made in Taiwan. I've got a few Bianchi's all made in Italy, and I gotta say I like them even more. Maybe it's the micro-shift & rebuild qualities of the Campy ergo's and the loud ass pawls in the freehub vs my 105 or ultegra? Maybe it's the idea that I'm riding a bike made by the oldest bike company in the world? I know I myself can't tell the difference between my Reynolds 520 vs Bianchi's chromolite 4130 or the Reynolds 853 against the Columbus SL regardless of bike manufacturer. But what I've come across personally though is that even if you go to smaller companies nowadays like All City, the framesets are all coming out of Taiwan so regardless of brand it all seems to be the same thing but with different 'custom' specs and badging; to me it's like getting a Sable vs a Taurus, or an Escalade vs a Yukon. I won't even look at new Bianchi Vigorelli's, for example because even they are mass produced on some heartless albeit high quality welding line in Taiwan, so to me it's like they've lost their soul a little bit even though the ride and build quality is still there. (Some)Italians however are still making beautiful steel frames in house that aren't 6 of the same Chinese bike coming off the same production line but with different paint jobs or cable routing; just look at the Cinelli XCR, or the Tommasini Techno(drool) or Sintesi(drool) as examples.
Last edited by funbuffalo24; 07-21-20 at 04:44 AM.