High end Italian frames

[Cheers!]

So the question and urge has come to enjoy the italian bikes.

I'm a big Cervelo fan boy. I've been a huge supporter of their efforts and even applied for engineering job postings there in the past. They are Canadian success story (are or were, depends on how you interpret the sale of Cervelo). I have a 2006 soloist team w/ Sram Red and chris king wheels as my everyday bike. I have a 2008 SLC-SL with reynolds/tune wheels @ 13.22 lbs.

But I really want to try Campy Super Record out, and I would love to have an italian bike.

Which frame would you choose to build up a beauty?

Kuota KOM?
Colnago M10S
Bianchi (not familiar with their offerings)
Wilier (again not familiar with them)
fondriest (even more clueless)
pinarello? (seems very expensive)

I don't even know what other brands I can think of...

I'm more interested in lightweight climbing bike rather than pure aero (the SLC-SL is my aero bike).

Thoughts? I don't even know where to start...

[Ypsylon]

I see where you are coming from, if my thumbs weren't way too short to use Campagnolo shifters, I would probably have done this or would want to do it.

Pinarellos have a history here for being built into beautiful bikes, but they're not light.

The one brand I can think of that appears to be missing is DeRosa.

[Cheers!]

Ah yes... De Rosa... I just looked at their website. Which is the top frame to consider? The King RS? or the Proto?

I think the baseline comparison is a Cervelo R5 or R3 SL (if I can find a NOS 54cm)...

Baseline in terms of performance and also in price.

[Matteo]

I cannot really help with comparing the bikes on your list, but you could also consider a smaller builder. Sarto makes custom carbon bikes (they are apparently also building some of the stock Crumpton frames?), so you could probably go for a light frame. WR Compositi also makes frames, but I don't know anything about them to be honest.

[über-goober]

I love my '09 De Rosa KIng 3. It does everything well and remains upgrade-proof as my main road bike so far.

But for a climbing bike the Sarto and Willier options are a lot lighter. 1170g for my frame vs sub-800 for those..

[Fibre-Lyte]

This doesn't help for a lightweight climbing bike, but if I was building an Italian bike, it would be a Pegoretti. I think that says a lot coming from someone who works for a carbon fibre parts manufacturer!

[über-goober]

Stephan have you seen the new Falz fork that Pegoretti has?

It's from far, far eastern Italy..

[Cheers!]

How about this one?

http://www.viner.it/index.php?option=co ... 47&lang=en



I think that would guarantee no one has one withing a 200 mile radius of me.

[pritchet74]

I can't believe that I haven't seen this thread before. I have been thinking the same thing lately. I LOVE my aero road bike, but I have ALWAYS wanted a Colnago. I don't know what model I would want, but one of the ones from a few years back that had the awesome paint jobs. So beautiful!

[Fibre-Lyte]

I would have said Colnago as well, but a lightweight climbing bike was mentioned and Colnagos aren't very lights.

@Cheers! if you consider a Viner bike be careful. I'm not sure what the situation is, but we recently had a customer contact us about modifying an ISP Viner frame into a separate seat post system. He said that Viner used to do the conversion as an option, but they're currently in Administration. I'm not sure if that's just the UK part, or the Italian part, the whole lot or whether the customer had misunderstood the situation, but worth checking out before you consider buying one.

[Mike K.]

I have a Colnago C50 HP that I will never part with. It's very predictable and stable which makes it great for long days in the saddle; but it's porkie so I have a Scott Addict R2 for fast ascending. If I did another Italian build it wouldn't be a C59-too heavy, and too traditional-lugs, standard BB. Now this new Wilier that Lampre is using in the Tour-that's one hot and innovative Italian ride!: /Users/mike/Desktop/wilier_cento1sr_full_view_3_600.jpg

[Mike K.]

That photo non operative. See this link for a series of photos of the new Wilier Cento 1 SR: http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/lam ... ad-machine

[pritchet74]

That Wilier is actually pretty damn sweet looking.

I started riding in the mid-90's and what was always awesome about Colnagos was the paint jobs and the chrome lugs - it just made for a beautiful frameset. That seems to be lost now. I just checked out the Colnago website and they all just look like the other carbon bikes out there. The only Colnago that made me want one is the Master 30th - which is a steel bike painted like they had them back in the day. Why can't they paint them like that now!!!!!????

[Ypsylon]

Remember this one?

[pritchet74]

I do. Very nice, but still not the old steel ones with the awesome paint.