Giovanni Pinarello has not made a frame in a very long time, and I doubt that his son Fausto has ever made one, but this does not mean bikes with their name on it are not true Pinarello bikes. I can promise you that Indurain, Riis and Ullrich (the 7 Off-topic years in question) all dealt with Pinarello and his people when getting fitted for their bikes. This is the same with all the sponsored riders. Furthermore, all operations with the sponsored riders were handled with full knowledge and approval from Pinarello, so in my books they were all Pinarello bikes. Beyond this, your assertion that Dario made frames for all riding pros is patently incorrect. He was only one of many framebuilders that were contracted to build the frames. In fact, I can guarantee that many if not most of the frames came out of the Viale della Repubblica frameshop in Villorba. As proof of this, I would like to relate an event that occurred to me personally. Giovanni Pinarello offered me a bike built for and used by Franco Ballerini at the conclusion of a season. The bike was identical in tubing and componentry to anything available to any Pinarello customer and had the complete Villorba serial number and build file. The frame was not 'stock' as determined by some catalogue, or as sold by your typical international distributor, but then Pinarello never insisted on selling only 'stock' frames: that was a creature of the needs of a sales network for an industrialized product. Herein lies one of the great differences between buying frames from a distributor and/or directly from the vaunted foreign frame builders: namely that when you buy through a distributor, you invariably get a 'stock' frame that may or may not suit your needs, whereas the framebuilder working directly with you may be willing to alter their 'standards' slightly to suit you. This is what occurs with the better sponsored riders (but not for most domestiques who continue to often get 'stock' frames) Lastly, to the best of my knowledge, none of the contracted or employed framebuilders were able to unilaterally do anything they wanted with any sponsored riders' frames.
Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ
> snipped from Steve Maasland:
>
> Fausto Pinarello wanted
> > to capitalize on the fact that Pinarello bikes were used to win 7
straight
> > Tour de Frances.
> >
> > Steven Maasland
> > Moorestown, NJ
>
> Was it the Piniarello bikes or just the decals that won all those tours?
> They were actually Dario Pegoretti's creations, as he built for all
> Piniarello-riding pros from 1991-1997. He also helped Dedaccia and Excell
> develop some strange tubesets, most notably the "radius" that's found on
the
> Piniarello Radius from the 1990's. There's one for sale on e-bay as we
> speak. Brittle tubeset apparently, early super-thin-walled stuff. He also
> did much of trhe development on all the wierd "mega-tube" shaped stuff.
> Interestingly, ten years later, he's chucked all that in the trash bin,
and
> uses only round tubes, everywhere, even in chainstays, with no taper.
>
> Charlie Shafer
> madison, Ct.
>
>
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