De Rosa, Colnago, Pinarello, continue to be great family names that grace the downtubes of Italian bicycles. Yet, today there is only one family member of these that actually builds frames and that is Doriano De Rosa, son of founder Ugo De Rosa. Doriano does all the Ti framebuilding at De Rosa and that to me makes the "Titanio" model special.
Marcello, whose blog BIKEADELIC is solely about De Rosa bicycles, recently had a a Titanio built for him by Doriano. Following are a few photos of Doriano working on the build, a more complete photo set on BIKEADELIC here.
Related stories in ICJ:
Ti Framebuilding by Doriano De Rosa
De Rosa - Il Miglior Fabbro
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Nice enough, but not much character shows on those ti bikes. Who at DeRosa makes this bike
ReplyDeletehttp://www.derosanews.com/DEROSA16_NUOVO_CLASSICO_Blue.html
Why there's not a red version is a mystery but it's almost as gorgeous in blue or green.
Can you read Doriano's t-shirt? I am rather sure it reads "Allman Brothers Band", I read a book called "Dixie Lullaby" about Southern Rock, they are suppose to be really good. I've only heard a few songs but good, a plug for American Classic Rock there.
ReplyDeleteI have a Cycle Sport from a few years and there is a list of all dealers of De Rosa bikes in the US.
Titanium is state of the art, one can see most all of these bikes, Battaglin, Moser, DeRosa at such sites like Velo Space and a newer one called Pedal Room where people put up pictures of their own bicycles.
TSVDP - the Allman Bros. were great! The "art" thing was the basis of our comment, there's simply NOT a lot of it on display in a bare-metal, welded frameset when compared to the steel DeRosa bikes. And titanium was "state of the art" a long time ago if you go by the pro peloton - it's (sadly) carbon-fiber these days. We sometimes wonder what the next "wonder" material will be in the bike industry - as labor costs increase might they come up with some sort of extrusion process to "squirt" out the parts of a bike frame?
ReplyDeleteL & H: But see your statement did put a condition on the Bikeadelic Titanium bike saying if it were used in the peleton. Titanium still has more benefits for larger riders, holds up under touring better as well. There are other things to consider besides performance in a competitive environment. Even steel tubing is improved on still. If one truly traced carbon bikes, they have existed for some time though not as advanced as now. For all we know, the Bikeadelic blogger may be wanting a sturdy bike and in that, I do believe Titanium might still be better.
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