For Sale: Duell Bologna frameset, NOS

I am going to approach this very seriously, because it is nice to eloborate on it a little.

Dutch tend to be pragmatic people. With their relationship to bikes it is no different. Already the Batavians were not very concerned with decorating pottery, axes and weapons. Function matters, no sissy things. Stuff has to do the job surprisingly well (given their no nonsense profile) or is worthless. The bike frame is a tool and this Duell is already showing quite some extravaganza with the paintjob (see also the other frames under the pic link) and especially the engraved autographs. How different it all was with the Romans or for example the Japanese empire - think of the sword of a Samurai knight. While with Italian stuff it sometimes acts as facade to cover up everything unpleasent more Italian products were notorious for, fine Japanese frames are usually sincerally nice. Opinion, no fact.

On the Thron tubing: Thron uses the same steel as SL or SLX, but benefits from new insights in tubing design. In the end, given the size and the purpose it was often used for (criteriums: 400 corners on small village roads), the package works really well. One should try it, to know it. A 320 gbp experiment, but it comes with a fine frame.

Thanks for the reply Ko! When I asked Peter Serier many, many years ago why didn't file the lugs of the frames he built he answered that Dutch customers weren't interested in that sort of thing. English framebuilders certainly took a different view, and filing lug ends was functional for them.

I looked up Thron to refresh my memory (I thought it was a step down from SLX/SPX/TSX) and found it's plain gauge. Is that correct? I never rode one so can't comment; always rode SP/SL, SPX/SLX, Max, etc etc.

As I said, it's a lovely frame!

Cheers!

P.s.: another memory: Jan van Dalen once told me he didn't use Dedacciai EOM 16.5 because he felt it was too light. Framebuilders are a curious sort! He now lives in Baarle Nassau, not in Hoek van Holland anymore, iirc, not far from my motorcycle dealer...