My understanding is that the first Bartali bikes, as ridden by Gino Bartali after he left Legnano, were made by Santamaria (the surname of the brothers who started the company) at least until 1954 when Gino retired. At some point subsequently, they seem to have been made by Giordani, a Bolognese bike manufacturer. There have probably been a number of manufacturers who have used the name. Bartali died relatively recently, but I do not know whether he kept control of his name throughout his lifetime or whether he sold, rather than licensed, the rights to its use on bicycles. I have seen the odd Bartali of the 1970s or 80s on ebay, which seemed to be nice but fairly ordinary Italian bikes that didn't have much to do with Gino. It seems slightly strange that there should be a French-threaded metric 531 bike with the Bartali brand -- it would seem to indicate that he licensed the name separately in France -- it is hard to imagine an Italian wanting to buy such a bike. Hugh Thornton Cheshire, England
From: Kurt Sperry <haxixe@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [CR] What can anyone tell me about Bartali (bike)? To: "Mark Pounders" <markpounders@gmail.com> Cc: "Classic Rendezvous" <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Date: Monday, 17 August, 2009, 11:03 PM
I've got what I believe to be a 1970 Bartali bike. French threaded throughout, metric 531, love it. It's my daily rider but I haven't been able to find out much of anything about the brand or who might have built it.
Kurt Sperry Bellingham, Washington USA
2009/8/17 Mark Pounders <markpounders@gmail.com>:
> Not the cyclist, the bike. I have found a link to Bartali through my
> research with The Sabatini family in Italy. It seems that Franco Sabatini
> was building the Bartali bikes in the early to mid 1980's after having
> closed his bike building business. I was sent a picture of a Bartali track
> frame built by Franco Sabatini. I recently acquired a Sabatini track bike
> built about 1978 and the craftsmanship is unbelieveable. I just don't know
> if this guy ever poppoed up on anyone's radar screen since he never imported
> to the US and since he was a builder for Bartali.
>
> I will be sending Dale some information on Sabatini soon, but was just
> wondering if anyone else had made the Bartali-Sabatini connection.
>
> Thanks for anything that you have.
>
> --
> Mark Pounders
> Richmond, Virginia
> USA