Brian's comments (re: the Confente currently on ebay) reminded me of a photo
of a photo I took during my visit with Confente's sister. It's of Confente
and Campagnolo together. I've posted it in my blog:
http://italiancyclingjournal.blogspot.com/
or *http://tinyurl.com/5azsbv* ** ** *Angel Garcia* *Long Valley, NJ * ** ** snip: This bike is a little later than 1975. I think they got the date from th e rear der. Common mistake. The bike I found out actually belongs to a f riend of Ralph's. He's just helping him to sell the bike in this case.
Mario had access to things like early or even sometimes prototype parts that us commoners in the states didn't see until a while later. This was due to Mario's stature as a framebuilder while in Italy. He drew upon t his edge upon occasion.
I do remember Mario working on his own version of a braze on ft.der. whi le I was in Carlsbad in '73/'74. I'm sure the movers and shakers in the framebuilding game in Italy were kicking around the braze on ft. der. id ea for a while before Campagnolo came out with their production version; which appeared after Shimano had already introduced the concept probabl y a year before Campagnolo.
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA