Somec Multistrade Custom Gravel with Lauf Fork

Also realizing that I hadn't yet posted my latest gravel bike here. It arrived last Fall and I didn't get too many rides in before all this winter!

Custom alloy Somec Multistrade with Campy Super Record EPS, Lauf fork, Leonardi Racing seatpost and Speedplay SYZR pedals. More parts made by friends!

Horses - This stem was made to go with my Colnago C60 (due to Colnago's connection with Ferrari) that was sold to make room for this bike. Somec borrowed their hometown's (Lugo di Romagna) symbol of Enzo's Cavallino Rampante and reverted it back to having the tail pointing down. Ferrari himself was granted permission to use the horse from the family of famed Italian WWI pilot Francesco Baracca (also of Lugo). I had the pleasure to see his museum with the Gallegati family (of Somec fame) back in 2016!

Along with the Tommasini Fire gravel bike, I have three sets of wheels to change the character of this bike. Fat 650B's, light 700c gravel and 700c tubeless road wheels. The choices that disc brakes give us! I just came across some even fatter 650's with tread that I may have to try out, seeing how the Somec has plenty more space.

Frameteller - My New Favorite Website

The Milanese and Venetian schools of classic builders are fairly well known. You have Gloria, who begat Galmozzi and Masi and Colnago who begat Rossin and on and on. Venetian brands are fairly well known as well, even if their lineage is a bit murkier. A visit to Turin and my eyes were opened to that incredibly talented school, which is known locally but not as well worldwide, what with folks like Ernesto and Ugo hogging the limelight still to this day.

After my visit to Emilia Romagna's Somec, a favorite brand from my teenage years, my eyes were opened to yet another innovative classic Italian school of builders. I recently found frameteller.it, where regional pride has led to an incredible archive of this region's highly innovative and influential builders. Here, Manuel Dall’Olio has curated stories, innovations, publications and more, all with a narrow focus on the output from Emilia Romagna.

Known to serious collectors, but still fairly hidden from the "easy" collectors, names like Marastoni, Somec and Rauler rise to the top fairly quickly; however, the important contributions of Vicini and Dosi (two builders of Marco Pantani's early bikes) lead down the rabbit hole until you find a Paletti, an Ortelli and all of a sudden you're reading a long complete history of Neri e Renzo and then you find your saved eBay searches has doubled!

It is thanks to this site that I now know the creator of the greatest 90's paint jobs... Mario Martini. The amazing stars, neon argyles and fades created by Martini graced the bikes from this region and I now know the story behind it thanks to frameteller.

The list of innovations and patents to come from this region is in itself worth a visit. Too long to list here, but incredibly important are such items as internal cables, brazed on bottle mounts, shaped steel tubing, and even rollers for training!

One common thread from E-R to Milan to Turin to the Veneto is that the artisan construct remains: local "houses" doing business to finish a hand made work of art, with little regard to systemization beyond the idea that you've worked with this chroming house or frame painter for years. It's something worthy of many business theses and a way of doing business that still exists in il bel paese. But this is also lost to many new world collectors who can't wrap their heads around the idea that the hard rules of production are thrown out the window when working in this manner. Yes, this builder used this certain lugset for this period - until he ran out, lost interest, found something new or whatever... but then eight years later found the last box of them and used them again. These are the mysteries that are best appreciated by accepting and understanding the artisan environment.

A tip of the hat to Manuel, who has researched and listed 340 historic brands to emerge from this region since the 1920's. His completeness and dedication to the project sets the standard for the archiving of and lifting the covers off of a very narrow but important focus.

To translate the site into english, you can start at the Patelli link here and navigate around. Note that some of the flash pages won't translate in this manner, but most articles will. Also, be sure to enjoy the awesome photos and publication archive.

THREE MAX RENAISSANCE BIKES

How about a pre-Christmas version of Bikes that Got Away? These technically were found online, but not necessarily for sale. Still, they should be mine!

All three bikes are Columbus Max tubes built up with modern-ish Campagnolo parts (a 'Renaissance' build, if you will).

Somec Promax with modern Campy

Another one...

And a Bianchi Caurus, also built a la Renaissance

BIKES THAT GOT AWAY, NOVEMBER EDITION

Here is what I missed out on or decided against adding to the stable recently, along with rationale!

This Maino went for a bundle! My latest obsession, but who needs three of them!?!

Another Maino, but I have a Vittoria Margherita already, and two Maino's.

This Rossin Ghibli has a great unique paint job, but SVB sells at retail! Nice find though.

Another great Ghibli. Not great enough!

This Somec Max featured on the cover of their catalog. I saw this bike at Fabio's house and was amazed how light a steel Max bike was.

Here it is in Fabio's attic. Were I not already moving twenty bikes half way across the country, and having not just bought a home, this one, too, would be mine!

HBG POSTED MY SOMEC!

It's been a blur of late, what with planning all of our Ridebiker activities for 2017, working the custom club kits for next year, and of course a very quick trip to Vegas for Interbike! On top of that, l'Eroica is fast approaching and the lists are being checked, bags are being packed.

Interbike was great as usual, bumping into old friends from all over the world. Particularly nice was seeing the crowd form around Cipo as he interrupted his selfie session and came over for a chat.

Gary had a great show with Somec, USA. I keep saying that there is an aging crowd who cares less and less about winning the sprint on the big Sunday group ride or Wednesday night world championship. There may just be more unicorns like me who appreciate the artistry in old-world manufacturing, and damn the power numbers. Sometimes, style counts WAY more than your legs!

It was nice to run into Paul from handbuiltbicyclenews.com, an ambitious new website that is towards the top of my list. Brian Ignatin from HBG showed up to the Rose Bowl ride a couple months ago and posted this article on my Somec a while back. Obviously, more examples of those with a proper appreciation for Italian steel!

With that, I'm unpacked from Vegas and repacking for l'Eroica. I have a number of interesting stops both before and after the event and will have the camera rolling the entire time. More to come...

And yes, that's my Sammontana-version Masini kit!

SOMEC LEADER MS, PLEASE!

New bike week!

From Somec:

In the 60's, Oliviero Gallegati worked as a mechanic for the Giro d'Italia. Seeing a need to establish standards for Giro mechanics, he established the Società Meccanica (Mechanic's Society) thus creating the acronym for SOMEC frames which he began building in 1973. Not naming frames after oneself in Italy is a rarity among Italian frame builders. 

SOMEC adopted two symbols to identify its brand: the tulip and the prancing horse. The tulip chosen for its elegance, sweetness and variety of colors. The prancing horse, symbol of the famous aviator Francesco Baracca Lugo. When you see the SOMEC logo, do not be confused with Ferrari. As the story goes, back in ancient history when Oliviero and Enzo Ferrari both wanted to show the Cavallino on their product, they came to an agreement as fellow "Romagnesi": Ferrari would put the tail up, SOMEC the tail down. They have never argued from that day.

While the Rossin goes in for paint, the "last" bike from my youth (how many times have I said that before plunking down more space credits for another 30 year old bike project?) popped up on the Bay.

Across all my internet message boards I'm amazed that there isn't more discussion about Columbus MS tubing. Preceding the MAX tube set that even has its own appreciation blog, the MS is relatively unknown... or maybe just that rare? Only the Tommasini Diamante was sold in numbers here in the US and I can't really recall any other builder that used it as much as Irio and Oliviero (maybe the Basso Ascot).

Before getting into details, let's look at what was posted at the Zonconato Racing site regarding Columbus in this time frame...

Here’s some history: MAX was the first Nivacrom tubing from Columbus.  Prior to MAX, Columbus' high end offerings had been made of Cyclex steel.  Cyclex steel was internally reinforced with ribbing to provide strength for stronger and bigger riders.  This made the tubes heavier than their non-rifled counterparts. In 1989, Columbus MS tubing was the next evolution. MS (which stood for multi shape) introduced swages and unique shapes to maximize stiffness. MS brought us the famous Diamante chain stays and asymmetric shapes on each side for drive-train stiffness. The only issue with MS was, you guessed it... weight.  Enter MAX, MAX was made of a new steel.  A stronger and lighter steel.  Such that it could be drawn with thinner walls and shorter butts.  In addition, MAX was bi-axially ovalized at the head tube, the seat tube, and at the bottom bracket.  It was oriented in such a way that the cross section where it intersected the seat tube required a unique lug as the sides of the top tube stuck out on both sides of the seat tube. I think you get my point:  MAX was cooler, and stiffer than any tubing Columbus had yet made.  

So back to Somec. THE wildest paint jobs of my bike porn youth were certainly the Ghibli and almost anything made by Somec and Tommasini. So like the Ghibli, this Somec Leader is made of Gilco Cyclex tubing by Columbus, but with the craziest tube shaping ever attempted by the cycling industry at the time. This had to be the most expensive tubing to be drawn, and certainly the most radical lugs made. A triangular non-drive chainstay and ovalized, flattened and teardrop shapes in the main triangle... no wonder I always wanted one!

From Germany comes this Somec Leader, size 56. Perfect other than the non-radical 80's paint job and missing MS decal. I fixed that, though! As the pantographed logos are 90's style and the paint job and decals are 2002 color code C11, I am going to assume this was repainted then. MS Leaders disappear from the Somec catalogues in the mid to late 90's, so let's call this a '94, repainted in '02!

The component build is all Campy, mostly record, as little carbon as possible. It also features Ambrosio clincher rims and new Clement LGG 28's. File this under "things rarely said", but this is the first set of clinchers I've had in years!

While waiting for a few other parts to arrive, I repainted the pantographing on the frame. In addition, thanks to my new friend Gary at Somec USA, I have a Deda pantographed stem and Deda bars and a pair of old pantographed Record brakes, not to mention a slew of stickers, old catalogues, bottle and a new matching jersey.

MS tubing takes a 25mm seat post, go figure. The only other frames that quickly come to mind that use this post are Alan bonded frames. My pals at The Bicycle Stand just so happened to have a C-Record post in 25mm!

How about more details? Someone on eBay sells these logo bubbled stickers, used here to dress up a Prologo saddle and bar tape plugs.

Ride report: It was worth the wait, the build and the childhood dreams. Yes, it's dreamy!