Nicely at the moment marks the tip of Faggin Week right here on the weblog:
Whereas I lastly bought a correct trip on it the opposite day, I bought an much more correct trip on it at the moment, with reasonable climbs and descents and all the pieces:
The bike might look its age after which some, but it surely looks like one million bucks, or extra precisely its pre-Euro equal, which might have been someplace round ITL3,000,000,000,000,000,000.
There’s an attract–dare I say a romance–to the Italian highway bicycle that’s maybe extra highly effective than every other. And naturally the biking cognascenti cogoscenti know-it-alls every have their favourite marque and builder and might establish from which Columbus tubing a motorbike is made just by licking it in addition to describe in nice element its trip attributes, as if their scranuses are as finely tuned devices as delicate as an oenophile’s tongue.
However how a lot of that’s really the bike, and the way a lot of it’s as a result of we’re principally simply dumb anglophones? Whereas I believe nearly all of basic Italian highway bikes trip superbly, I additionally suspect the gorgeous method during which they trip is pretty indistinguishable, and that most individuals kind their impressions and preferences about which Italian highway bike they like finest based mostly largely on the title and the paint. For instance, after I was first getting actually into highway bikes, I assumed Ciöcces (or is it Ciöcci…? Like gnocci…?) had been extremely cool:
[Via Classic Cycle]
I didn’t know a factor about them, besides that the title had three “c” and an umlaut in it and was fully unpronounceable, which I discovered beguiling. And that was sufficient. In actual fact, I believe the unpronounceability of Italian highway bike names accounts for at the least 50% of their attract:
[Seen at Jersey Cycles]
I imply it’s an actual magnificence, however the title with a bunch of additional letters you don’t pronounce actually takes it excessive.
So would a rose by every other title scent as candy? Take into account the Cervino, which is in truth basically a Viner, however bears a model title most individuals at the moment now affiliate with low-cost mountain bikes at Dick’s Sporting Items:
It actually does scent as candy in that it additionally rides superbly, however because of the Nishiki decal the uninitiated twenty first century cyclists merely mistake it for an outdated crappy 10-speed–and there’s a sure satisfaction in that, for less than that you just’re using round with a Viner between your legs.
Experience secure this weekend, thanks for studying, and please settle for my apologies for the Viner puns. However they ain’t stopping anytime quickly.
