...they could easily strike up a conversation with Merckx* which the hundred equally good builders could not *
Excuse me, but are we to believe that practically every village in Italy had its resident artisan framebuilder whose worse luck was *not* to have the good fortune to rub shoulders with the Cannibal and thereby receive his stamp of approval...? I would suggest that for every framebuilder who attains a reputation beyond the village limits there must be hundreds if not thousands who picked up the torch and eventually went back to herding sheep or shoveling manure or tending bar or whatever would-be village artisans do in Italy. I object to anyone talking so dismissively of the hard-earned talents of the established greats of framebuilders, be they of Italian, French, British, American, Japanese or where ever origin. That attitude goes a long way towards my understanding of the source of their obsession with the likes of Schwinn Superiors, World Travelers and other behemoths of that ilk. Their enthusiasm has nothing to do with the bike's build quality but everything to do with its arcane minutiae. That's ok, too----somebody has to carry that torch!
Nor Meyer in Mt. Vernon, IA