With the entire house sick and sleeping off illness I found time to retire to the shop to dress up my latest Italian build, an 80's Vianelli that remained in Basel after we moved (not sure why) and with the help of a few friends, found its way back to me last year.
After l'Eroica I stayed with close friends who live close to Vianelli's shop on the west edge of Brescia. I took the frame to its 'home' and to meet Pierfranco, who won the 1968 Olympic gold medal in the road race in Mexico City.
He was very gracious and left me with two interesting facts. One; when asked which model my frame is and which decal set on the sheet to place and where, he replied that there was no real rhyme or reason for the models or decal placements. The ones I've found online seem to show a little randomness but those with Olympic rings on the forks or in the legwork seem to be declared with "Mexico" so I'm going with that. Two; he has about 300 raw old steel frames in the basement just waiting to be finished and sold, but no real interest in doing so!
With a new fat bike project in the works, my Vianelli is now headed to that great auction site in the sky - I mean eBay. I built it and rode it a few times. It's very nice and typical of a workmanlike Italian 80's bike. Not fancy or with a lot of frills, but will get the job done. My example, in fact, can trace back to a dilettante who raced the 1981 Coppa d'Oro.
Nice!
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