Originally Posted by
Robvolz
At the time, Specialized was looking east for their products.
and
Ernie had no problems selling his products with his name on them. I have a hard time seeing him make a frame for someone else.
After all, he famously destroyed a friendship with Cino Cinelli for not allowing Colnago's name to be printed on a saddle, resulting with never using a Cinelii product again and only using 3ttt.
Had he said "3 Rensho," I would have thought, "that tracks."
The rift was a result of much deeper tensions with Cinelli stressing maintaining the culture of in house craftsmanship and subtle branding. Colnago on the the other hand outsourced a majority of their production and began pantographing everything with their logo as a way of selling more assembled bikes rather than the traditional supplier of frames and letting the customer/bike shop build up the bike. Cinelli did not want their products defaced and effectively rebranded as Colnago.