Starider

Dear all

I am fairly new to this forum and I would like your collective thoughts on a subject that I think could cause alot of people feeling they had been had by the bike industry.

I have recently had a very long and in depth discussion with someone who has been in the bike trade selling top end Italian road frames for along time. It was suggested that alot of large, world renowned Italian bike compaines are having their frames made in the Far East and having them imported to Italy to finish and paint them. I know that Colnago are having some their carbon and alloy frames made in Taiwan because it says so on the downtube, which is fine because you then know what you are buying. Though according to this source, alot of the other Italian frame builders are doing this but telling the customer it is made in Italy! I'm not just talking about the lower end frames, but the top end ones too.

This is particulary of interest to me as I own a few modern Italian frames and paid a 'not so little amount of money' believing they were made in a factory in Italy, by a world renowned master craftsman with years of experience welding frames.

Is there any truth in this? If so, then their are an awful lot of people out there being lied to and spending their hard earned cash on something thats not what they think it is, which is just plain wrong! Any thoughts or evidence to this being true would be welcome, Best Regards.