Steven- You have hit the nail on the head, as it were. Even though I have seen Specialissimas in person and had the opportunity to peruse through a couple of early, mid and late 1980s catalogs, the top end bikes like the Specialissimas seem to go by non-consistance names. It causes, (me at least) some consternation because once I think I understand the "real" lineage, names get thrown around like a worm caught in some wheel spokes. Based upon information that I have seen, these are some of the monikers and vintages Bianchi has used: 1970ish to 1981: Specialissimas, Campion d'Italia, Superleggera, Competiziones. 1981 to 1985: Specialissimas, Superleggera, Mondial. 1986 to 1988: Superleggera, but this is beyond the CR vintage years 1989 to present:??? and ditto on CR vintage years. And as far as the "team issue" bikes of the early 1980s are concerned, these appear to be Specialissimas or Superleggeras. Again, some of this info I I have had direct hands-on knowledge of, some I have read in Bianchi catalogs, and some is attributable to my fuzzy powers of guesstimation. To throw another monkey wrench into the mess, I have seen with "my own two eyes", a late 70s Campion d'Italia with Columbus TreTubi and fully pantographed Super Record parts. It also had chromed fork crowns, drop outs, head tube lugs, seat stay caps, and right rear chainstay. In addition, it had the word Bianchi stamped on the chainstay caps, and a "B" stamped on either side of the fork crown. It did not have any "Bs" on the lugs because they were all cut-outs. It had a "Campion d'Italia" decal on either side of the top-tube, and a "Specialissimas" decal on the left side chainstay. All of the fuss of pantographing and chrome plating on a "TreTubi" frame seems very unorthodox to me, but then again Basso did something similar with their early "Gap" models. They were completely SP and many races were ridden and won on them, no big deal. Were all these complexities addressed in Bicycle Guide with the Torelli frame material test? I haven't a clue. Cheers, Dave Anderson Cut Bank MT
In a message dated 9/14/2002 10:23:11 AM PDT, NortonMarg@aol.com writes:
All that said, Team Issues are substantially similar to Specialissimas
and
Competiziones, with the exception of some very minor details. They can
casually be called the same in terms of geometry, but technically, I don't
think an SP Team bike is the same as an SL Specialissima.