It's often said that a teacher is best judged by the qualities of his/her disciplies. In that vein, I wonder how much of Masi's reputation in the states is due to the bikes he built, the champions who rode them, & the great "disciples" who at some point worked in his shop and went on to become masters in their own right. I doubt whether the first has much actual power. How many people have actually seen a Masi built by the master himself, and how many could identify one with the decals gone and other identifying marks of the frame obscured? The second probably carries more explantory power but can't account for everything. I just don't see the same interest on this list in, say, DeRosas, as I do for Masis. I can think of other framebuilders both here and elsewhere who have built steel bikes for champions but who don't elicit the same reverance. That leaves the last factor. Regardless of who Masi's first disciple was, the fact remains that even stateside his students constitute a who's who of modern framebuilding and/or refinishing: Baylis, Confente, etc. I think that this fact expands the mystique of the original master; the success of his disciples redounds to him, giving him a larger than life appeal. It's hard not to ask: "how good must he have been if several of the masters we know now were at one point under his care and guidance?" For the same reason it's hard not to look at any really beautifully executed Masi without concluding that Falerio is some fundamental sense responsible for the final product even if he didn't build it.
None of this is to say that Falerio is responsible for all of the success of his disciples. They developed their own styles and flourished in their own right. But it is to suggest that the sheer number who did make it constitutes good evidence that Falerio's influence went way beyond "the roll of the dice", that it was something more than a random or haphazard thing. Jon
Jon Cowden
Ithaca, NY