Legendary Builders, Little-known Stories

   A couple of years ago I purchased the book Bike! A Tribute to the World’s Greatest Cycling Designers by Richard Moore and Daniel Benson. I would immediately describe it as a combination coffee table book and reference tome, as it blends beautiful large format photographs with a wealth of historical information about my favorite subject.

   I find myself rereading segments of the book constantly when a story about a certain bike kind of drifts through my memory, and I want to clarify the details of the tale. More recently I browsed through the book to collect interesting bits that I thought would be interesting to share when I don’t have a whole lot to write about. Right now I’m in a bit of a “holding pattern” with my projects, so...

   Many cycling fans know that the leader’s jersey at the Giro d’Italia is pink because the race’s first sponsor, La Gazzetta della Sport, is printed on paper of that color, but few are aware of the role the Atala company played in organizing the event. Bianchi, with the aid of the Corriere della Sera newspaper, was attempting to organize a race that would be the Italian answer to the Tour de France.

   Atala, a much newer and smaller company, took the news to the Gazzetta, and their attempts to beat out their rival paper has become the beautiful national tour it is today. The Atala-sponsored team won a couple team titles in the early years of the event, as officials experimented with the format of the race and there was no individual winner.

   The builder sponsored riders occasionally after World War I, but never again managed another Giro winner. In 1947, Atala supported only a single rider – a man named Giovanni Pinarello, who went on to a bit of bicycle manufacturing fame himself!

   Eduardo Bianchi started his company, the world’s oldest still in operation, in 1885 at the age of twenty-one! As his reputation grew in Italy, Eduardo was summoned to teach Queen Margherita how to ride, after which followed an appointment in 1895 by King Umberto as official supplier to the crown. This honor allowed him to use the royal coat of arms on his bikes, and the distinctive head badge is still in use today.

   Cannondale, a company known globally for cutting edge technology and innovation, takes its name from a tiny, rustic Metro-North railroad station, which was featured in their original logo. The business started in the second floor of a pickle factory in nearby Bethel, Connecticut.

   Although their first bicycle wasn’t rolled out until 1983, the company started back in 1971, producing backpacks, clothing and accessories. A Cannondale-manufactured child trailer called “The Bugger” was not a name that endeared itself to the U.K. market!

   German manufacturer Canyon, which currently supplies both the Movistar and Katusha pro teams, only sells directly through the internet. Ironically, the company was started by a cycling-crazy teen with help from his father, who accumulated high-end components during frequent trips to Italy and sold them from a trailer at races. Roman Arnold’s family business grew to occupy a garage and eventually a shop that became very influential to the German cycling scene.

Movistar team bicycle by Canyon

   Cervélo bicycles was founded by engineering classmates at McGill University in Montreal. Dutchman Gerard Vroomen (could there be a better last name for a bike designer?) and his Canadian partner Phil White used a play on words when naming their company – cervello is Italian for “brain”, and vélo is French for “bike”.

   I’ve written much about Colnago bicycles over the years, but few people know that Ernesto Colnago was initially a mechanic to some of the sport’s biggest names. In fact, his start came during recovery from a broken leg sustained in a bike race, when he built wheels for the Gloria Cycle factory in Milan.

   As news of his skills grew, and he received commissions from the likes of Fausto Coppi, Ernesto started a small shop with the financial backing of his father. His big “break” came when he was introduced to two-time Giro d’Italia winner Fiorenzo Magni, who was suffering a knee problem. Ernesto discovered a misaligned crank, which was found to be the cause of the Italian champion’s problems. Magni was able to recover in time to win a third Giro title, eleven seconds ahead of Coppi!

   By the 1960s Colnago was building his own bicycles, as he worked for riders such as Gianni Motta and the Italian national team. His reputation spread through the pro ranks, and after helping Michele Dancelli end a 17-year drought for Italy at the country’s biggest one-day race, Milan-San Remo, Ernesto began working with the phenomenal Eddy Merckx. The Italian master frame-builder later estimated he built more than 100 bicycles for Merckx alone, while working for the Belgian great’s Molteni team!

   The majority of the world’s most prized vintage steel bicycles are built from Columbus tubing. Although started in 1919, much of the Milanese firm’s reputation grew in the ‘30s from the manufacturing of home and office furniture, in particular seating. Examples of their furniture, made in partnership with avant-garde designers and architects of the period, are stored in a vast warehouse on company premises. The now deteriorating fabrics contrast sharply with beautiful flowing tubing from which they still hang.

   Like many of his fellow builders, Ugo De Rosa was at one time a racer, but while others fell into manufacturing bikes because of setbacks in their cycling careers, he wanted to be a frame-builder from a young age. While studying engineering at technical school, he repaired and assembled bicycles at his uncle’s workshop to develop his understanding of the machines. He founded De Rosa Cycles when he was only eighteen years old!
   His reputation grew as a result of a meeting with French great Raphaël Géminiani, who asked Ugo to build him a bicycle for the upcoming Giro d’Italia. Géminiani rode the bike to eighth place, then followed up with a third place finish at the Tour de France.

   However, De Rosa’s breakout success came when he stepped in as Eddy Merckx’s builder after the Belgian legend had a fallout with Ernesto Colnago. Merckx had just set the hour record aboard a bike labeled “Windsor” (a Mexican company), although it had been built by Colnago. One version of the story was that the labelling was intended to honor his Mexican hosts, but word is that Merckx actually received $10,000 to badge his bike, which understandably infuriated Ernesto Colnago.

   The name "Flandria Cycles" recalls one of the great heartlands of pro cycling, as well as a legendary team that had the likes of Eddy Merckx, Freddie Maertens, Roger de Vlaeminck, Joop Zoetemelk and Sean Kelly all eventually spending time on the roster. Behind the scenes, however, were four Claeys brothers struggling for control over the company.

   One of the brothers decided to retire and another left to form a competing company. The two remaining Claeys divided the business – literally, with a brick wall constructed to separate the workshop into halves. In places where the machinery was too heavy to move, the wall simply split that in two as well!

   The Taiwanese company Giant lives up to its name as the world’s biggest manufacturer, producing five million bicycles a year, from cheap town cruisers to state-of-the art racing machines. Amazingly, the company is a relative newcomer, having been around just over forty years, focusing mainly on the building and badging of bikes for other companies.

   It was the actions of one of their customers, Schwinn, which altered the course of Giant’s history. In the 1970s, the word “Schwinn” meant bicycle almost in the same way Americans say “Kleenex” for a tissue. However, as the decade ended and sales dropped off, the company looked to Giant for a high quality, low cost alternative in production and was able to turn things around.

   Years later when Schwinn switched some of its production to China, folks at Giant were quite angry and retaliated by hiring a former Schwinn marketing executive, putting him in charge of the company. Bill Austin took the company global, shedding the once negative “Made in Taiwan” stereotype by sponsoring pro teams to show the quality of Giant bicycles, starting with mountain bikes then adding an association with the Australian Institute of Sport. His big move was supplying the highly-successful ONCE team that included French legend Laurent Jalabert.

   While Giant was able to show off its innovative compact frameset, now an industry standard, and continues to promote its modern aero racing bikes with today’s Giant-Alpecin team, it seems things have come full circle as a “Schwinn bike” now has a negative stereotype, as the machines are often off-the-shelf, department store products.

Giant-Alpecin team bicycle by Giant

More to come...