[CR]Re: Re: Info needed for U. Testi bike

(Example: Racing:Wayne Stetina)



After doing some research, here are some facts, clarifications and comments: it is not correct that no other Italians won the world championships in 1947; Coppi did win the 1947 pursuit race (not the road race), and as Angel pointed out earlier the winner of the Amateur road race, Ferrari, was Italian, as was the runner up, and the winner of the amateur pursuit race was Ben Fatti, also of Italy. In 1948 the winner of the Amateur road race was indeed Harry Snell of Sweden, but the winner of the pursuit race was MESSINA, of Italy. Note that this is potentially consistent with the claims and markings on my Testi. It appears increasingly unlikely that Testi's claims were false or exaggerated. Also, there were only two categories, Amateur and Professional, and there was no "U23" category at that time. Information source for all of the above information is the program for the 1963 World Championships.

Jonathan Agnew Darien, CT

In a message dated 12/8/2003 3:08:36 PM Eastern Standard Time, classicrendezvous-request@bikelist.org writes:
> Jonathan wrote:
>
> > The writing on
> > my frame cites "Campionato del Mondo" for 1947 and 1948. I have not yet been
> > able to confirm whether this indicates what I think it might (or should, unless
> > they were making exaggerated claims), which is that the (almost certainly
> > amateur) world road championships were won on Testi bicycles for those years.
>
> Campionato del mondo means world championship, which is quite different from Campione del Mondo which would indicate a world champion. I think thhis distinction is quite telling for a couple of reasons. Firstly, apart from Coppi, there were no other Italian world champions in 1947 (either amateur or professional that I can tell.) Coppi rode a Bianchi to victory. Secondly, at the time, the chances of any non-Italian rider using a small Bolognese framebuilder's frame were quite slim. I think it is much more likely that this indicates that there was indeed one or more Italians riding a Testi brand frame in the world championships without having won 'the' championship. At the time, to have one of your bikes participating was sufficient reason to be proud, especially when dealing with what was apparently a regional brand. At the time, the top racing brand from Bologna would have been Cimatti, which would have left Testi as the second brand in the Bologna area.
>
> Jonathan does however hit one point firmly on the head: namely, that some smaller framebuilders produced some of the nicest frames of the day. Often outdoing the best of the 'big'
> first tier builders.
> --
> Steven Maasland
> Moorestown, NJ



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