Re: [CR] Columbus Aelle v. SL

I have a couple of Aelle bikes, including a junior Romic I built up for my daughter when she was about 12. They seem to ride quite nicely. As pointed out in the Bicycle Guide test, the tubeset used is often highly overrated. I think one reason to buy a bike with a more expensive tubeset is that one expects more care to have been taken in building it. But many Italian builders seem to have a different view of things. I've frequently been amazed by the number of VERY nice Italian frames built with Aelle, and the extent of detailing lavished on these frames. I can't imagine any American builder going to that much trouble with an Aelle frame. The attitude here would be that if one is going to put the labor into a handbuilt frame, spend a few more dollars for a more prestigeous tubeset, so as to be able to charge a higher price. But it seems that in Italy or maybe other parts of Europe where Italian frames are widely sold, there is/was a market for nicely finished racing frames made of less expensive tubesets to reduce cost. I must say I don't think such a market existed in the US in the days when lugged steel frames were still the norm. It seems American obsessed over the tubing sticker to an extent Italian buyers did not. An American company offering complete bikes would have been more likely to economize on components or adopt simlpler cheaper build methods to meet a price point than to use a less prestigeous tubeset.

BTW, one of the past posts seemed to list TreTubi as a Columbus tubeset, but TreTubi of course simply means 3 tubes, i.e. main tubes of the specified tubing, like the "3 Tubes" decal on French frames with 531 main tubes. So Aelle and TreTubi are not mutually exclusive, and indeed there are quite a few Aelle TreTubi frames around with decals stating exactly that. I think perhaps Aelle was available in butted as well as straight gauge tubes, but I'm not sure about that.

Regards,

Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Texas, USA