postcardman33

I was told that my Gios Torino is NOT a Gios, but the frame was made by Volta. Has anyone heard of guy? The bike has campy dropouts

biker1bmw

Hello,

I know this is an old post but did you ever find out what your Gios Torino frame really was? I think I have the same bike.

thanks

juvela

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We need help from @MauriceMoss!

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T-Mar

There was a Volta brand from Lyon, France but all the references I've seen date to the very early 20th century.

MauriceMoss

@biker1bmw do you have a bike that looks like the OP's or that same frame?

Either way, could you post some close up pictures of it when you get a chance? If the uploader doesn't allow you to post pics because you have fewer than 10 posts, you can do a few filler posts to get to the limit or just post pictures somewhere like Flickr or Photobucket or Imgur and link here.


Volta is a name that pops up from time to time on Italian bike forums and always as part of fratelli Volta. How many brothers or what their individual names were is never mentioned. Not sure why. If anyone knows (any Italian BF members here?) any details about them, I’d love to know.

Also, all the mentions I've seen so far are almost exclusively in ID request threads. People tend to make a guess that this frame or that frame is a Volta but this isn't ever backed up with evidence.
This is the reason why I don't have any real reference point to say whether a frame is a Volta or not.
From what I can gather, their frames would sport two/three small circular lug cutouts more often than not and looked to be of very high quality.
I have never seen a Volta frame labeled as a Volta.

The rest of the information I've collected is all unconfirmed, so it may or may not be (completely) true:

• The Volta brothers had an established shop in Dergano (suburb/district of Milan) by at least 1947
• They were an early influence on Ugo De Rosa who, as an early teen (in ‘47), would pop into the shop and admire the bikes and activity going on inside. Apparently, he knew then he wanted to build bikes.
• At least some Colnago Freccia models were allegedly built by the Volta brothers.
• According to Angelo Galmozzi, Voltas were their biggest competition in the subcontractor business in Milan.

MauriceMoss

Re: the OP's bike - the frame looks less Italian and more Belgian to me (is the bottom bracket threading English or Italian?).
My almost knee jerk reaction when seeing the large single or double circular lug cutout is: “Belgian!”

While that "V" shaped cutout in the bottom bracket shell could probably be done by anyone, I've only seen it on one frame - a Plume Sport (of Anderlecht, not to be confused the La Plume/Plum Vainqueur of Ghent):






@postcardman33, @biker1bmw - is there anything stamped on the underside of the bottom bracket shell (such as letters or numbers)? Also, is that a Moser fork?

juvela

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Wonderful help as always Maurice!

Here is another Plume Sport in original livery -

Search | Forum Velo Retro Course

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TugaDude