Espo3909

Hello guys, I知 considering buying this bike, the seller stars a bike shop owner from Aspen Colorado with the nickname Monte had these built, supposedly by Masi. I知 sceptical that Masi built these as I see no real commonalities when comparing this to a mid seventies Gran Criterium. There is however a Milano decal and that is where Masi was located in Italy- along with so many other framebuilders. The Gios decal on the chainstay baffles me as again I see no distinctive characteristics that would point me towards this bike coming out of the Gios shop. Any help with a builder or opinions on value is appreciated, thanks in advance, Bob

juvela

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@MauriceMoss


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big chainring 

Monte of Italy. He was a real character. Sponsored a lot of top riders back in the day and an early sponsor of the Red Zinger/Coors Classic.

Very well could be a Gios as that was the bike the Monte of Italy team rode.

Value....that bike has it all going on. Thats a time capsule of super bike greatness. $1500.

MauriceMoss

Thanks for the tag @juvela.

I've never heard of Monte before, so this is a new one for me. A cursory search says it was Monte Hughes of Aspen who started the company:

Aspenites also got bit by the racing bug. Cycling enthusiast Monte Hughes, who often traveled to Europe to watch races, formed the Monte of Italy team in the early 1970s with young Aspen men such as Michael Ernemann, Jasjit Grewal, Rick Ferrell and Eric Kinsman. In 1974 they traveled the state in a beat-up mini-bus to compete in whatever races they could find.

I don't think your frame was made either a Masi or a Gios @Espo3909.

Although more closeups of tops of the head lugs/seat lug (and the fork crown) would help, from what I see here, I'd say this frame was most likely made by Vanni Losa. Another, far less likely, possibility would be someone like Lino Tempesta, but my money's on Losa here.

The seat stay cap treatment was common on contract frames Losa did for many shops around Italy (here are two examples, a Guarini and a Turconi both made by Losa) :






Also, those tear shaped cutouts on the bb shell can be found on vast majority of Losa frames (in lugs and bb shells). Here's a Losa branded frame:





This is the closest match to the OP's frame that I could find:







Interestingly, the font of the downtube decals is identical to that of an Italian marque called Monti (of Baggio). Lots of their bikes were made by Losa as well. In fact, the green frame above is a Monti made by Losa.
I wonder if Losa offered decal design in addition to building the frames or was this some sort of joke since Monte in English sounds kind of like Monti in Italian?




Here's a couple of fork crown panto styles found on Losa-built Monti frames:

juvela

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WOW!

Thanks so much Maurice.

Yet another pitch hit clean out the ballpark and into the next county.

In the last image posted was struck by how closely the font for the M resembles the one employed by Motobecane for a time.

Super work.


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Espo3909

Thank you Maurice for the excellent research! And thank you Juvela for getting Maurice involved. I知 going to look at the bike tomorrow and see if we can agree on a price.

big chainring 

Ahh, this completes my story. Get in the wayback machine to 1976.... Milwaukee Super Week bike races, and the MSOE dorms. My racing bud and I are rooming on the same floor as this old guy, our 16 yr old perspective, named Monte. And everytime we see Monte in the hall or elevator we see this 13 yr old kid, wearing Monte of Italy green, white, and red jersey. He has all the best gear on and a full Campy bike. Yet he only raced a couple of Intermediate races all week. He was very shy, kinda hid behind Monte. He was introduced as Alexi but we called him Alex. Trying to get some kind of reaction from him we would greet him with "Allleeex", dragging out his name. But Alexi would look away and try to avoid us as much as possible.

And now with the information above I realize that was a 13 year old Alexi Grewal!