1947 Soncini Sport Bike

Sooner or later in their lives, all bikes will generally get some type of unique or identifying mark or feature. For some it might be nothing more than a scratch or decal, for others the frame might be custom-built for the rider or perhaps the owner has chosen a few select components. This particular bike was the personal bike of builder, and it was used as both a test vehicle as well as a rolling calling card that showed the variety of solutions that he could build on customer's bikes. It was built in 1947 in Parma, Italy, by a builder/shop owner by the name Soncini.

The bike was built as a sport bike. It has brass mudguards, an indexed Lucchini derailleur, custom handlebars, wire matrix chainguard, 4 pivot brakes, internal brake routing, Campagnolo quick-release axles fitted to all-alloy SIAMT hubs, alloy Fiamme rims. Apart from the tyres, the bike is completely original. The rear vertical drop-outs were custom-made for the frame. The derailleur lever just below the saddle has four notches which accurately index the shifting.

Thats lovely.

Here is the only other bike that I have ever seen with a Lucchini derailleur: http://bicyclespecialties.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html

Great bike!


I also have a Lucchini derailleur but have not yet fitted it to a bike. Hoping to get it happening soon...

I like how mine, yours and Mike Barry's are all different. I wonder how many different ones there were? There can't have been too many made in total.

I suppose I should have said that Mike's and mine are the only ones that I have seen fitted and working on a bike. I have seen a few like yours in boxes but not yet mounted. There is another one fitted to an Arbos bike floating around the internet. My Soncini has the integrated mount as part of the custom drop-outs, so you know that the bike was built around this or a similarly mounted derailleur since inception. If you look at the drop-outs you can actually recognize some similarity to modern laser-cut drop-outs used by some custom builders, just to show that there is very little new in the bike business, just rehashed ideas.

As best as I can tell, the Lucchini derailleur was only first made available in 1946, just after the war, and it did indeed not last long. It also seems to have been geographically limited to teh area of Emilia Romagna.

BTW, some old-timers have told me that the derailleur when pedaled backwards should also be able to shift up front from the big chainring to the little granny gear. I have tried but can't get it to work on my bike. However, that could be due to the fact that the spring is very tired on my bike...

PS: Did you come across some of your items from the late Ron Shepherd?

Citoyen du monde":1tyzv6s2 said:

PS: Did you come across some of your items from the late Ron Shepherd?

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info on the derailleur!!

I got mine from an Italian couple. They listed a Lygie with Cambio Corsa on eBay a while back and in one small picture I could see it with this Lucchini mounted. So I asked them if that was for sale... and here it is.

They had a bunch of other weird and wonderful derailleurs from 1946-1950ish and I bought a handful of them over the next couple of months. I'm kind of regretting not taking out a loan and buying all of them now... There was a few real beauties!