Don Palmer

I have a Mancini road bike. I think it is 80's vintage, but I can find nothing on the internet about the make at all. On the top tube is written "frame by ferrari" on the top of the two forks is stamped a large blue M. On the forks is written, Forcelli, Original, Columbus.
It is all campy and is stamped Campagnolo vecoce. Does anyone know anything about the make? Was Mancini the maker, or was it someone else? Any idea of the vintage?

mapleleafs-13 

Pictures or it didnt happen

Don Palmer

Camera isn't working, but I'll get a new battery and try again. I thought someone would know the maker.

Don Palmer

Okay Sherlock here are some pictures. Who knows what about the Mancini brand!

Don Palmer

Someone told me he found something on the internet claiming there was a bike shop in Toronto selling Mancini back in "the day", but he didn't know when "back in the day" was. The mystery continues.

cb400bill

I don't know of the Mancini brand, but that is a pretty bike. Some clear closeups of the bike's lugs may help someone ID it for you.

cb400bill

Here is a thread that is about Mancini bikes. It collaborates the Toronto bike shop story.

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ancini-bicycle

Yup. First shop I worked in sold them. That was in Toronto in the mid/late '80s.
They were Italian made frames and I bought one built of Biemmezeta "aero" tubing that had a mix of Campy, Ofmega, Gipiemme, and Universal components with Nisi tubular rims. It was a beautiful dark blue with white decals and a chrome fork. Had a horribly harsh ride, but I didn't know any better at the time.
I remember there was a higher end model that was all white with all Campy stuff made from Columbus tubing - mainly because we had one returned when the poorly brazed BB shell/downtube joint failed, causing the chainring to slam into the ground and have a big flat spot ground out of it.
We stopped carrying Mancinis after that.

Giacomo 1 

I can't say I know anything about Mancini's, but it's a very nice looking bike and it looks like a reasonably high end bike with a quality Columbus frame. I have a Fabio Barecci and I have never found out who Fabio is or was, but it's also pretty cool. Sometimes we're destined to ride mystery bikes.

A question though - is a bike maker "allowed" to sport world championship decals if they never won the WC? Because I see your Mancini does have them on the DT and I'm guessing they never won one...

Drillium Dude 

Nice details - I'd like to see more Also, is it just me, or does the fully-chromed rear triangle suggest that the fork should be/might have been chromed at some point as well? I can't recall seeing a lack of chrome on a fork on any frame with that much chrome out back. Perhaps the fork is a replacement - the "M" motif recalls Marinoni to me.

James: a lot of small builders made the actual frames for riders in the peloton, particularly at the Worlds; they may have been branded as one thing or another, but the builder could be different than the name on the downtube. I know in particular that Marinoni built frames that were rebranded. If an unsung builder built and provided, say, the "Colnago" of the winning World Championship rider, the actual builder would be entitled to put the rainbow stripes on subsequent frames produced from his shop.

For a fairly recent example: Caloi was the sponsor of the Motorola Team bikes, thus Caloi (a Brazilian bike manufacturer in their own right) appeared on the downtubes - but as everyone knows, the bikes were actually built by Merckx

DD

Giacomo 1 

Makes a lot of sense. So I'm guessing that would make Mancini a builder with a decent reputation...

Happy 4th of July DD!

Don Palmer

I never noticed the World Championship decals as being those colors, but you are right! Why are they there? I believe I saw a photo on vintage bikes of another Mancini frame from 2008 (orange I believe) with the World Championship decals framing "Mancini". Could there have been an Italian rider on a Mancini who won the WC, or did the maker just choose those colors for marketing purposes? Another road of detection to pursue. What is with that decal "frame by Ferrari", like it is linked to expensive race cars? I remember reading that internet post about Mancini and I remember the comment about it being a rough ride and the Toronto bike shop dropping it. I must confess, I so lots of long rides on it and I find it smoother than most other steel bikes I have ridden, so I never got that one. The mystery continues.

Don Palmer

"The Greater the suffering, the greater the pleasures"

Tim Krabbe, The Rider