You guys were too busy ironing your Cinzano jerseys for the Cirque so no one answered my query last week about Italian use of lightweight tubing in their machines.
Can someone tell me when Italian manufacturers started using lightweight tubing (like Reynolds 531 or Columbus)? I ask because most of the late 1940s-50s Italian bikes I see offered make no specific mention of frame material. Were they indeed made of lightweight steel or....? Ditto alloy components.... when were these introduced in Italy and how common were they during the say pre-mid 1960s? Again, most of the bikes I see seem to have chromed steel components.
French machines of the period seem to have reserved the use of lightweight tubing only for the top-end of their range. Even Peugeot had, what, maybe two models with Reynolds in the 1970s when Raleigh had six or more different ones in a myriad of price points. By the late 1940s, use of Reynolds or Accles & Pollack tubing was almost universal in all British club and racing machines as were alloy components (except chainwheels and cranks).
How did Italian practice differ? Or did it?
Peter Kohler Washington DC USA
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