What are your top 3 Italian frame brands?

177

rBotM Winner
Spin off from the other thread ...

For me.

1 Colnago
2 Pinarello
3 DeRosa

What are others thinking?
 
No way am I even remotely qualified to express an opinion, but just to get the ball rolling, and to ring the changes on your list, the ones that stick in my mind from '70s peloton pictures are: Celeste Blue Bianchi, Brooklyn Blue Gios, and Black'n'White SCIC Bottecchia.

Just as in the UK, the person who gets their name splashed across the tubes is seldom the craftsman who joined those tubes together. Someone was making this point in a thread recently...

Is any name, whether that of the brand or the individual craftsman, an ironclad guarantee of quality? I don't know. I guess what you're after is the name associated with the most consistently high quality framebuilding?
 
1. Colnago
2. Pegoretti
3. Tomassini

I own a couple of Colnagos in steel, and they are literally the nicest bikes I've ever ridden. Streets better than the 531 Raleighs and Carltons of my youth (and my revisited youth!), much better than my old 753 Peugeot, and incomparably better than the custom built 531 bike I had made in the very late '80s by a well known UK frame builder.

When I got my first Colnago (Tecnos) I went from a Pinarello Treviso, and was expecting parity. I was utterly blown away and have been addicted ever since.
 
For completely personal reasons my three are -
1. Rossin
2. Gios
3. Pinarello

The reasons are too complex to discuss.

Thanks all
 
Top of my list, naturally, is Colnago and, to be honest, I have never ridden any other Italian frames.

Looking at other folk's bikes from the steel frame era, I've tended to go for Tommasini and Pinarello next on my list and in that order. Moving away from the retro era but still with steel bikes, take a look at Scapin's steel and steel/carbon bikes - especially the "Style" with Campy Record.

Irrespective - if one day I ever came up on the lottery, some of it would definitely go on a Master X-light frame and forks in front of whatever else might be on the market on that lucky day.
 
I think our perceptions of brands is shaped by many things, just was wondering what people's thoughts were.
 
Montello":1b9f2uxm said:
I think our perceptions of brands is shaped by many things, just was wondering what people's thoughts were.

My best (still crap!) years were spent on an Alan. The other two were on my dream list. A modern version of the other two is on the cards if I ever decide to spend some money.
 
In my teens i oogled older guys on their new Alans. They were so expensive to me at that time, that i never even asked what they cost. The old expression - if you have to ask how much, you cannot afford it.

I stuck to my Rapide which is still going 29 yers later, i wonder if the Alans are still going.
 
In no particular order Cinelli, Pesenti, Pegoretti.

I must admit I've only ridden the Cinelli though and wish I could afford a Pesenti or a Pegoretti.

I do like Pinarello's and Colnago's but they have become a bit too much of an aspirational brand for me and I like to fly in the face of fashion (I do like the older steel ones though esp the Colnago pre-art decor era). Bianchi's have never really floated my boat.

If I had a no. 4,5 & 6 option I'd probably go for De Rosa, Gios and Ciocc. (but I don't so I won't)
 
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