[CR]Was Atala..now Maino..what is that frame

(Example: Framebuilding:Tubing)

From: "Norris Lockley" <Norris.Lockley@btopenworld.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 01:12:52 +0100
Subject: [CR]Was Atala..now Maino..what is that frame

The general consensus of opinion is that the frame at Ebay Item No 710040186 is of italian manufacture, with companies such as Atala, Lygie ( due to a similarity with a Lygie frame recently sold on Ebay) and Maino..another recent Ebay sale.

All these companies have a couple of things in common, apart from being Italian that is, in that all were/are based in Padua, and all hve been owned at one time or another by Cesare Rizzato's company, which still manufactures Atala.

Apart from that they appear to share the same seat lug/top-eye design. This should not be much of a surprise because also in Padua is the other Rizzato-owned company, this time Alessandro Rizzato, that concentrates, or used to, on the manufacture of frame components> In his 1985 catalogue he showed several variations of that particular seat-lug assembly, together with all other lugs, brackets and fork crowns. Also displayed are those beautiful lug-sets often found on Olmos, Atalas etc of the 50/60s that I always describe to myself as "art nouveau," with large asymetrical curved cut-outs in them.

The same Lygie lugs, with slight variations are also on my 1950s Girardengo as well as my Arbos from the same period. I think that the Girardengos were once built in Allessandria, as were Maino.

Hoping that might help resolve the query

Norris Lockley, Settle UK