Today I was having a visit with Canadian Olympian, "Ace" Atkinson who has owned a bike shop here in Vancouver since the 40's. We got around to talking about Cinelli's because I had given him my Model B. serial# awhile ago just in case he happened to come across it in his old papers. I mentioned that I had recently picked up an early 60's SC and gave him that serial# also.
Ace had imported bikes directly from Cinelli from the 50's onwards and shared this little story with me. He said that he always sold more Mod.B's than SC's because of the price difference, and as a matter of fact that Ace's friend was at the 1960 Rome Olympics and Viktor Kapitonov won the Mens road race on a Mod. B, because the Soviet team could not afford the SC! Ace told me that Cino gave Kapitonov an SC for his Mod. B as quick as he could. I guess that Cinelli did not want people knowing that they didn't need the "premium" model.
Victor Penner
van/bc/canada