[CR]Fake GIOS on Ebay

(Example: Framebuilders:Dario Pegoretti)

From: "Norris Lockley" <norris.lockley@talktalk.net>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 14:43:28 +0100
Subject: [CR]Fake GIOS on Ebay

Interesting..so I am not the only one to own a fake GIOS !

I know that there was craze in the Uk in the 80s and 90s for respraying and "rebadging" frames as Colnagos, GIOS, CIOCC, Guerciotti etc..and for thre most part these fakes were very evidently not what they purported to be..many didn't even have an Italian-thresded bracket. Last year, never having had a GIOS..and being a sucker for that beautiful blue enamel finish, I bid on and won a "Gios Touring bike" on French ebay. Be cause the seller, who lived near Nice was unwilling to send the bike outside France I had it delivered to a friend in Provence from whom I subsequently collected it.

Certainly the frame was blue..yes, the decals are legitimate..but this GIOS bore little resemblance to any machine that I had ever seen that came out of the "Torino" factory. Accepting that I had in fact bought a touring bike and not a road racing one, I was prepared to discover some differences in build quality.

However it was very evident that my Gios was the product of a French factory and not an Italian one. The lugs are very similar to those on the Ebay frame, as are the pressed plate fork ends..and the top eyes..and the crown..a Wagner I think..but the one on my "GIOS" has a chrome-plated pressed-steel embellishment over it.

I haven't as yet checked out the bracket threading, but expect it to be French..there is no claim that the tubing is Reynolds. However I am pretty convinced that this is a genuine GIOS and that it is the product of a sub-contracted deal by GIOS with a French manufacturer.

Somewhere, perhaps on the CR List, I read that in Italy, GIOS does sell, if not actually produce the bikes themselves, a range of more "standard" bikes, including some of those small-wheeled folding models.

Certainly I accept my French GIOS as a GIOS- catalogued bike, but I would never claim it to be a Super Record..or to be built of anything other than that infamous "103"-type high quality mild steel tubing.

Norris Lockley ..Settle UK