The Italian Geometry

Have you ever wondered why certain bikes have that "special" ride? To many of us, our first great road frame was an Italian frame, probably made in the 1980s or 1990s. We asked Tim K, an avid collector and restorer of Italian bikes, what gave them that special ride: fast for crits but stable for long fast rides.

This is a guest post by Tim K, our resident expert on frame geometry.

From Channone, under CC-BY-2.0.

If you're talking pre-80's (like that Masi in my basement) then Italian geometry is actually very slack compared to an American bike from the same era.  Remember, Italy wasn't very well-paved until the 1980's, so a quick-handling bike would also be brutally uncomfortable, as well as dangerous.  So, angles tended to be a little shallower (around 72 degrees) and chainstays were quite long.  Fork rakes were around 50mm.  Bottom brackets were quite low.

These bikes have an exceedingly pleasant ride.  You can toot around town on them, go touring on them, or get in the drops and really start hammering, all by tweaking stem height a little.  They are not, however, particularly fast, since tons of pedaling energy goes into flexing the frame.

A Visit to Artisan Frame Maker Cyfac

As many of you know, I'm a big fan of Cyfac and I am fortunate enough to own a few of their frames.  Cyfac is a very small company in France that makes cutting-edge frames but in the old fashioned way:  everything is done by hand.

Work brings me to France every once in a while, so in December 2009 I asked Eric Sakalowsky a co-owner of Cyfac if it would be possible for me to visit their workshop near Tours, France.  He was YES affirmatively and arrange for the guys at Cyfac to even get me a loaner Cyfac to use during my visit.

Tours is easily accessed from Paris via the TGV, and in about 2 hours I made my way to Tours, and to Langeais which is where I was recommended to stay.  My hotel of choice was Hotel Errard, shown in the center of the first pic.

Monsieur and Madame Errard were very accommodating.  Monsieur Errard loves to cook, and goes shopping for fresh ingredients every day. They offered a prix fixe meal plan that includes a multi-course meal, and I accepted wholeheartedly!