shadoman

Me too ! Great price point for excellent build work, paint....eh, not so much. I'm thinking about chroming mine.

iab

Only trophies.

ciocc_cat

My wife's early 1980s Colnago Super frame is flawlessly beautiful and rides like a dream, but Signore Ernesto Colnago is rumored to have farmed-out his production to others in order to meet the demand.

Gary Fountain

Many of the Italian bikes have been imported into Australia (my location) over the decades but I have found that if I was in the market for an Italian frame/bike there was only a few choices available in my extended area that I could actually see and test ride. I seemed to buy the bike that fitted me best or the frame that best measured up to my body's requirements. I think my 'brand' affiliation came after the initial purchase.

I have owned Olmo, Colnago, Cinelli, Pinarello, Daccordi, Rossin, Bianchi, Benotto (Mexican) and Alan and can honestly say that I feel an affiliation to all these brands. In reality, they have all been wonderful bikes and I enjoyed riding every one of them. I think you will find that most Italian bikes, regardless of the name on the downtube, will be nice to ride and you will 'bond' to the brand that you buy. It is more important to find a frame that fits.

ciocc_cat

Don't know about them, but Ciocc (Pelizzoli) certainly did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJHwPqn2jY0

gridplan

I ride a Guerciotti and a Somec from time to time. I like both quite a bit. But I hope the OP will seriously consider a Ciöcc. It's my favorite steel bike to ride. I don't know if it's because of the frame's geometry, but the handling is pretty crisp. It's a lot of fun.

753proguy

Cool video! Now I have the name pronunciation right. Almost sounds German more than Italian... 'chuh-ch.'

Man, those Italians cook the heck out of stuff. Good thing vintage steel can take that much heat that fast!

There is a very nice-looking large red Ciocc on ebag right now, but the seller wants $1800 for it. Ow.

753proguy

Imo you're missing out on a proverbial buttload of really fine stuff, but c'est la vie. If you like your non-oversized '83 Sachs, that's no different than the vast majority of high-end non-oversized vintage lugged framesets from 1935-1983, tubing-wise. Double-butted 531 revolutionized things in 1935, and set the standard for decades. Columbus SL/SP is very, very similar to 531 in its characteristics.

afilado

LOL....

And I like your list.

J

753proguy

It was a rhetorical question.

Six jours

I'm still on record arguing that if you strip the logos and paint off most of these bikes, few if any of us could tell them apart. Yes, some have identifying features like Cinelli's lugs, etc. but as far as workmanship? Very little difference, in general. If you really want the best workmanship available, start shopping for custom American frames.

The good news, of course, is that despite (or because of) this lack of difference, most of the Italians can be counted upon to be very competent bikes. So just choose the ones that speak to you (I like Bianchi, even though they tend to be more "mass-market", simply because they were a big and distinctive presence in the pro peloton during my formative years) and go!

753proguy

So you think that the workmanship on a Confente and a Guerciotti are the same? I think not, sir.

gridplan

I wonder what the OP's budget is. Owning a Confente would be great, but he'd better have some pretty deep pockets.

TheOtherGuy

Laverda Jota got me excited, though I sure did like the Benelli 250/6 of the early '80s. Moto Morini were fun, too.

753proguy

Doubt he would be interested in one, but that's not the point. Fwiw, you can get a pretty nice one for about the same price as a new Vanilla or Sachs.

mapleleafs-13 

1) Pinarello (who would have thought i woulda mentioned this one)
2) colnago
3) cinelli
4) Bianchi (celeste, high end model)
5) tomassini
6) ciocc

speaking of CIOCC

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Gorgeous-CIO...t_11633wt_1386



i've been drooling over this frame every time i see it, the colors are sooooooo awesome. too bad i blew my load on the pinarello montello frame i bought, don't want to have that many high end frames kicking around. i'm at 4 personal rides and about 20 flip bikes, don't know if i have anymore room or time for another build., i think i'm gonna try to resist this one

Suprisingly i have not seen anyone mention de rosa yet..

hayduke217

For what it's worth, I had a friend, a doctor, and a RAAM rider, who had a stable of Italian bikes back in the mid-80s, like 15 of them. He said he liked the Cinelli and Gios the best. I love my Gios.

bobbycorno

Italian bike rankings? That's easy:

1) DeRosa
2) anything else

SP
Bend, OR

Giacomo 1 

My budget will be right around $800, but will stretch to $1000 if the bike is right.

I'm really liking those Ciocc bikes.

Where do you guys think Bottochechia fit's into the mix? Bottom, middle, or top of the list? For some reason, they really grab me....

Picchio Special

Corti won the amateur Men's Road Race. The pro race was won by Moser.

randyjawa 

I have come to believe that the name on the frame means little. I don't get all excited about mass produced/hand built frame sets anymore. But I do like the true hand built frame sets that come my way, from time to time.

To me, a hand built frame is one that is designed by the man who holds the torch, the file and perhaps even the paint brush. If these tasks are all performed by different people, the hand built thing looses some of its value, in my mind. Value, in this instance, equals craftsmanship.

I have seen extremely well made robot built frame sets. And crappy hand made ones. But every now and again, some builder somewhere gets it right. About the only bicycle that had a hand built feel to it was a 1971 Masi Gran Criterium that came my way one day. That bicycle was simple, elegant and incredibly nicely built. Ride quality was more than impressive, even though the bike did not quite fit me perfectly. But I do wonder if the frame was designed and built by the same person.

And another hand built, by my definition, bicycle came my way the other day. That bicycle, a very early seventies G. Piccini. I got the bicycle from the fellow who bought it brand new from the actual builder, from G. Piccini in Firenze, Italy.



The G. Piccini was designed and constructed by G. Piccini (duh). The bike is clean but not exceptionally so. In fact, the bicycle is not particularly impressive. I have not ridden the bike yet and doubt it will tell me too much, when I do, since it is a bit too small for me. And, for me, ride quality, not just appearance, is one of the defining factors when rating or evaluating a bicycles vices and virtues.

And ride quality does not have to be all wrapped up in a pretty package. Not a chance and the Peugeot UO8 is proof of that pudding, as far as I am concerned. The French made UO8 is hardly a great bicycle, but certainly above average ride quality. Ride quality???

Let's be honest. I am a 60+ year old ex wrestler. There is no way I will ever be able to extract the performance, another ride defining quality, from any of the high end bikes that I have had, do have or will have.

So, top dog ride quality to me, is something that is much the same for most good bikes. I can't tell the difference, most of the time. But there are times when the feel is something beyond the norm and that is impossible to explain. Few bicycles have ever offered the magical and impossible to explain feel of which I speak. One that does come to mind, is not Italian. My 1971 made in England Carlton Professional had that something special.

Rate the Italian bicycles? Based on personal experience, quality of construction and my miserably inadequate interpretation of ride quality...

1971 Masi Gran Criterium
199? Pinarello Trevisio
1984 Tommasini Prestige
1984 Torpado Super Racing

You will notice that only one pre-1980 example made my list. Why? Because many of my Italian bikes are of early seventies vintage. And, in the early seventies, everyone was trying to keep up with the Bike Boom. Needless to say, quality of construction and finish might have fell prey to the attempts to meet an incredible increase in demand for the Ten Speeds of the day.

So, bicycles like an early seventies Atala Record 101 Professional, or a 1972 Bottecchia Giro d'Italia, or a late sixties Legnano Gran Premio, or even a lesser Maserati, can't make the cut simple because there are numerous workmanship related cosmetic blemishes. If the cosmetic blemishes are present, so too will be mechanical issues, in my opinion.

However, I cannot end without making mention of the nicest riding bicycle, and one of the most cleanly built I have ever seen, my Specialized Junker II. Now that bicycle would probably make few, if any, Best of the Best lists. But it made mine and it is not Italian, French, English or Canadian. I am not even sure if it is hand built. But it is one heck of a bicycle and I could care less who made it, or where or even when.

gomango

1) DeRosa- Only the steel, as the CF models bore me to death.

2) Marastoni- Got to see one in person three years ago in a small village on the Bavarian/Austrian border. Haunts me to the point that I made an offer to buy. The owner has invited us to dinner next time we visit family in the Dorf! We'll see where it goes from there.

3) Masi - I almost bought a very used 1974 Gran Criterium last winter, but was beyond my talents to restore. Got lucky though when a local shop owner offered me an earlier model, if I buy a C-50 frameset. Currently fund raising.

4) Tommasini- I've owned several and currently have a 1994 Sintesi frameset begging me to rebuild her. She'll have to wait until this winter!

5) Zullo- I've recently brought my overgrown herd of Zullos back down to my Sprint. All of them have had nice characteristics, but my Sprint is the keeper. It's like it was custom built just for me.

6) Marnati- Aaron wants me to try one, and I will this winter!

Picchio Special

Also, at least in the pressed-lug era, quite a few Italian makers have "identifying features," though often more subtle than the obvious Cinelli seatlug. They often took the extra time to add little flourishes that marked them as masters of their craft - the Marastoni front derailleur braze-on, the extanded bottom bracket shell tang of Grandis, the way Masi added material to the seatlug ears, etc. By the 80's, many of these distinctive (and more expensive) details gave way to cookie-cutter lugs from Microfusione with logos cast-in to mark the builder, often made with semi-mass-production techniques. It's at this point that the quality and overall impression is pretty overall ho-hum - though more consistently good from a pure riding perspective. It's important to make a distinction between these eras, and recognize that "workmanship" in the earlier period was often to a high standard, but not in the same sense as characterized by super-well finished American frames from Di Nucci, Sachs, et. al. That era in Italian bike making did produce more "clunkers" - part of the charm.

Pre-IC-lug Italian bikes are not common in the US. For an 80's Italian frame that embodies the overall aesthetic - which during that era was coalescing from the standpoint of gradually improving paint and decals and classic Italian "stage race" geometry - I'd maybe look for Grandis, Pinarello, Rossin, Tommasini, and maybe one of the earlier Ciocc's with the cool, skinny lugs. For something a bit fancier, I'd throw Somec and Paletti into the mix. I'd also keep an eye out for a Zullo. There are many others that are good, though.

Picchio Special

While I understand your point, I think it makes too strong a connection between craftsmanship and the "one-person-shop" myth, which is largely an American projection. Most Italian builders - even smaller ones - had apprentices, almost like an extension of the Renaissance craft guild. A small-production shop, with the careful quality control by the "master" that comes with modest production and staffing, can produce very high quality objects, and it's the way many, many Italian shops operated. In fact, if you go back to the Renaissance, this was true even of people like Stradivari and the great painters. In the case of painting, the master's signature meant that it met his standard and was worthy to bear his name, not that he personally made the entire thing. There were highly skilled painters who specialized in, for example, landscape details, or clothing, who would go studio to studio to make their living. Because they specialized, the quality of their work was very, very high - worthy to bear the master's signature on the final product.

Italuminium

what he said. Very good metaphor.

I can highly recommend ALAN as well, very pretty and light aluminum bikes. See my sig for more details.