I'm not sure if this would apply to everyone's concept of a budget frame however I would be interested and maybe some other people may also be interested in hearing from anybody who has had any experience with recent Marinoni Pistas made with Columbus Zona steel.

Other than riding on one of his custom road frames and hearing some good things said by Machka over in the long distance cycling and touring forums I very rarely hear anybody talking about them let alone anything about their track frames.

From what I've gathered Giuseppe Marinoni came of age cycling in Italy and raced with guys like Felice Gimondi and has been hand making custom frames for over 30 some odd years in Quebec Canada. As far as I know he unfortunately no longer makes lugged frames but he does supposedly however continue to "personally" hand build his custom frames in materials ranging from Columbus Starship to Zona which I think in most cases he guarantees them. And he's got over 25,000 frames under his belt so his website says. Somebody told me his wife even paints them. I don't know if thats true or whether this is a good thing but it does sound charming.

When I compare frames such as the

$500-600 EAI Bareknuckle, De Bernardi
$400 Steamroller, Somas
$350 Moth
$250-300 IRO Mark V, Angus, Jamie Roy, Pake,

all of which as far as I know except for the De Bernardi are all made by companies who choose to farm out there product for one reason or another to Taiwan

with

$605 Marinoni Pista frame & fork
$537 Marinoni Pista frame only

which is handmade personally by Marinoni and you get to choose the geometry of the frame, pick the color, and is backed by a guarantee staked on over 30 years of handbuilt race frames. I can't help but be slightly interesteted even if they are sadly no longer lugged. Especially if it doesn't take months to make and Giuseppe Marinoni gets to make his frames under fair and humane working conditions?

I personally don't know if any of this is true. On their site under the Specs heading I clicked on geometrie and a pdf downloaded giving specs for the pista that seem like general or slightly lax track geometry. More or less 74 seat and head tube angles running in the the various listed even sizes ranging from 48 to 58. I don't know if these specs are for a standard off the shelf model or what. Maybe they have an off the shelf model thats available with no wait time. But supposedly the frame comes custom made. Somewhere I saw that the optional fork is aluminum. I don't know if I like the sound of that or whether its threaded or not. And as far as custom color and whether that means that they plaster their label over the color you choose. I can't say. The Marinoni road frame that I got from a shop in Cali about a year a go came matte black completely bare except for where its says campagnolo on the drop outs. As far as Columbus Zona and how it compares to the Dedacciai COM 12.5 Cromoly or Reynolds 631 I don't know. My road frame is made of Zona and its light, very responsive, and has carried heavy rear panniers from San Fran back to NY. Its held up so far. But thats that. I hope some of this may be of some help.