[CR]To the person wanting a Cinelli

I’m the person who wants a Cinelli. I actually did know about the$2300 Super Corsa on eBay before I posted my message and had contacted the seller about it but wasn’t interested in that bike at that price. 

Perhaps I should ask the people on the list whether I really should pursue a Super Corsa. I see that Don Gillies is trying to compare them to Paramounts. I own two Paramounts (1958 black beauty and 1972 chrome) but haven’t actually ridden either because they are basically NOS or near-NOS; I hate it when that happens. My significant other has an 80’s Waterford Paramount with 70’s Campagnolo components and she has a gorgeous early 80’s Colnago with pantographed Super Record parts. She's told me for a couple of years that the Colnago is a dream to ride compared to the Paramount (I think it's the paint job) and so I’ve wanted to get an Italian bike myself to try out. The Colnago’s seem a bit too common (please don’t take offense anyone, it's just that there are a lot of them out there) and the look of the Cinelli’s appeals to me, so I thought I’d try to pick one up to see if it really is any better than the other steel bikes that I commonly ride (Proteus, 753 TI Team Raleigh).

So, does anyone out there have an opinion (HA, HA!) on whether Italian bikes are special (to ride, not to look at) and, if so, which is the best of the bunch from the 60's/70's era? If a Colnago is just as good, I could save myself a lot of time and money. And if none of them really feels that much different from American/English bikes, I can save that much more.

Gary Chottiner, Northeast Ohio

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I am always surprised at the pricing of cinelli super corsas in the early 1970's, vs. the american equivalent, a schwinn paramount p-10 or maybe p-12. Let me preface this by saying that I think that the cinellis are beautiful bikes, _however_, to state this in the most provocative way possible :

is one chromed lug and one fancy-painted headbadge really worth $1000 extra?

what do people think ?? Was the paramount a "ripoff" of the cinelli artistic design? Who adopted this understated look first, cinelli or schwinn ?? Because from 10' away, or at 20 mph, it's hard to tell the difference between the bikes.

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA