Originally Posted by Danegeld
It was looked at by the people at villiage bikes its a botteccia not something else made to look like one.
IM preety sure that Don would have known the difference too and wouldnt have ridden it unless it was ..what we..think it is
you know how some bikers can be particular... he was VERY particular about his rides
I don't know ANY European bike in 1989 that was using welded tubes. Most especially it seems odd that Bottecchia would since they were one of the top marques at that time and welded construction was considered cheap crappy American supermarket bike construction. Moreover, the fork was unicrown and that was NOT Italian by any stretch of the imagination since it has only been the last couple of years when you could get those in Europe.
It was 5 years later before Bridgestone would use welded construction and the Italians were long after that.
I suppose it's possible that Bottecchia licensed out their name to some Taiwanese manufacturer. It would have been interesting to know if it used an Italian or an English bottom bracket.