Heartfelt congratulations to Wayne Bingham on the completion of the Morroni \u201cTelavio\u201d. As the present custodian of a Pino Morroni pursuit/time trial bike, I\u2019ve been very curious about the Telavio project and look forward to both the pictures and laying hands on the bike itself at Cirque. If I can get there I\u2019ll schlep my Morroni and Cirque will become a venue with the largest collection of Pino Morroni bikes ever seen together 8*)
Of course when you own a never built NOS frame and fork you\u2019re entitled to build it up any way that pleases you - in Wayne\u2019s case with period correct Campagnolo SR parts. My Morroni of the same period, however, sports not a single Campy component. Not so strange considering that only the headset, seatpost, handle bars and cranks (Gipiemme) are off-the-shelf items. Everything else was fabricated by Pino personally or was custom fabricated for him.. Here\u2019s an image of the bike as I received it:
http://www.toad.net/
Remember that most of Pino\u2019s bikes were custom built for a specific individual and/or event. This particular bike has a 650c front wheel and a 700c rear but instead of slanting the top tube to accommodate this configuration, Pino chose to extend the head tube. A very strange decision on his part since Morroni was renowned as the world\u2019s most finicky weight weenie and the long head tube adds (unnecessary?) weight. The \u201cextra\u201d pair of seat stays bracing the rear triangle also add weight. What in the world was going on here? I was told that when Pino was questioned about these braces his response (in four words of broken English) are reported to have been \u201cMoser is a brute\u201d. Har,har, harty har har. I don\u2019t believe this for a second, but something strange was certainly going on here.
For the curious, some more details. Yes. The bike has the typical Telavio \u201cstraws\u201d and is painted the typical Telavio taxi cab yellow but I do not consider it a Telavio. In addition to Pino\u2019s three green mice logos everywhere there are two Pino Morroni signature decals on the top tube and there are no Telavio decals. Here\u2019s an image of the milled bottom bracket shell housing the Morroni aluminum and titanium sealed bottom bracket with two adjustable cups.
http://www.toad.net/
The head tube complete with plastic headset. The kind that weighs 4 ounces and lasts for one track event provided you weigh 120 pounds. I wanted to ride the bike (with different wheels naturally) so I replaced it with a Campy Pista. Still have the original for eventual reinstallation. Note the adjustable titanium brace running from stem to fork crown to reduce flexing in a sprint. Today everybody does it but in 1983?
http://www.toad.net/
The 13.5cm stem Pino machined out of a solid titanium block:
http://www.toad.net/
The front wheel with 32 hand made direct pull radially laced titanium spokes. These are threaded into a hub fabricated by Pino in aluminum and titanium. Even the axle nuts are hand fabricated titanium. The rims both front and rear were custom drilled for Pino by the manufacturer:
http://www.toad.net/
The rear wheel is cross one. Pino fabricated hub of course, The 32 titanium spokes are all oriented heads out. Titanium nuts, of course. Et cetera, et cetera et cetera:
http://www.toad.net/
Finally a closeup of the front rim showing Pino\u2019s unique construction method. He uses two hand made titanium nuts on each spoke - one on the outside of the rim (tire side) and one on the inside. The wheel is trued and tensioned in the ordinary way using the outside nuts Then the inside nuts are run up snugly against the rim. The rim, sandwiched between these nuts, is exceptionally resistant to flexing under the riders weight.
http://www.toad.net/
That's it for show and tell. Say goodnight Gracie.
Martin Needleman Annapolis, MD
Bingham, Wayne R. wrote:
<== snip ===>
> Anyway, I have just finished up my Telavio track bike project this past
> weekend (it will make it's debut at the Cirque), but I still need to
> install a chain. Near as I can tell, Pino Morroni made the Telavio
> frames while in Italy, during the period around 1983, but maybe as late
> as '85. I've built up the frame with all NOS Campy SR Pista components,
> mostly from the same time frame. To round out the project, I've used
> 3ttt track stem and bars, Nisi Pista Speciale 200g rims, Clement Seta
> Pista tires and a Concor saddle.