Cicli Pinarello revisited.


These pictures are taken by me on a visit in 1984 to the famous bike builder, Giovanni Pinarello in Treviso, Italy! This is the first time ever that I shown these photographs to the public. I feel as if I just opened a vault and found something quite precious! I kept the equipment simple, a Canon F-1,  85mm, 50mm lenses on Ilford HP-5 film.  Quite a different set up from my new digital camera!  Signor Pinarello was very generous and I was given carte blanche to photograph in his factory.  I can only imagine that it wouldn't be the same in this day and age in a modern bike factory! The two photographs is Signor Pinarello closely supervising a worker carefully brazing shows his attention for  meticulous detail on his bikes. The other is an overall shot of two workers and their tool bench.  I remember the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Men's road race won by  American,  Alexi Grewal on a multi colored Pinarello Montello SLX! And, it was a joy to see the same multi colored  models finished and ready for shipping.  His bikes had captured many distinguish international races: the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, Vuelta di Spagna, world  time trial championship, Olympic road race, an many other international wins.  As I look back on this wonderful time, I admired his beautiful handmade bikes and met a understated man that is  synonymous with a winning tradition and  fine Italian craftsmanship!  
'Fatti con le mani' -  Italian for 'Made by hand'. 

© 2007 Richard Lee - All Rights Reserved.


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