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About
QUADERNI EROICI - About the best Italian artisans
Posted by
@zpieri00
Posted by
@zpieri00
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
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Hello everybody,
we take the opportunity to write here.
We think that in Italy we have a little gap between the importance that lightweight bicycle framebuilders had in the history of cycling, at lest in the second half of the twentieth century, and the existing (Italian) literature about them.
So, this is why we working hard to print a series dedicated to the best (around 20) Italian framebuilders in the Eroica age.
The name of the series is Quaderni Eroici and the first 4 issues will be dedicated to 4 skilled artisans: Pogliaghi, Alpi, Marastoni and Galmozzi.
It will be in English also and printed on paper in the old traditional.
If you are interested you may find all the information:
Below a short presentation text of the project, we hope you will like the Quaderni Eroici, stay tuned :)
Best regards
Pier Antonio Zanini
and Manuel Dall’Olio (frameteller.it)
Italy is famous for the big firms in fashion, design and motors. Yet, little known at home is the impact that, from the 1930s to the 1980s, our craftsmen had on the way of conceiving and building bicycles all over the world.
Their stories are full of talent and courage; they are the stories of artisans who, often without resources and training, have dedicated their lives to their passion, working to improve both themselves and their manufactured products, creating innovations that have forever marked the history of professional and amateur cycling.
To open a workshop in those days certainly did not mean getting rich, but it was still a free job and for some preferable to that in the factory or in the fields, so they began by occasionally building frames or making repairs until it became their main source of income. Theirs are the little-known names of people that, in most cases, never took those steps necessary to reach the industrial dimension. This is because they preferred tailor-made work and the direct and personal relationship with the cyclist; they are people who dedicated their entire existence to the conquest of intangible treasures such as the satisfaction of giving shape to an idea with one’s own hands. Their stories have a lot in common: poverty, the drama of the two wars, the passion for bicycles, the obsessive attention to details, exceptional manual dexterity and a constant search for the perfect synthesis between aesthetics and functionality.
We created Quaderni Eroici to record their dreams, projects and goals that have come down to us through five generations of master framebuilders and save them from oblivion.
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