Originally Posted by peligro
I think these frames are just re-badged asian models. Several venerable european marques (Motobecane and Masi come to mind) have been licensing their names to Taiwanese manufacturers, producing bikes that look VERY similar to the Bassos.
Performance is selling these framesets for $1,000...That's a LOT of money for a Taiwan frameset. Go to gvhbikes.com and you'll find comparable asian framesets w/ Columbus tubing (badged as Raleigh mostly) for like $350, or an American made Cannondale CAAD5 for $535.
Lots of framesets look similar. Do you have any knowledge of Basso abandoning frameset production in Italy? I think the case of Motobecane (and Mercier, etc) is different; it used to be a French company that made bikes in France, but now it looks like someone simply bought rights to the name to bank on an established reputation. Basso is still a going Italian concern... and the finish on the welds on the Reef is nicer than what I have seen on those Raleighs, etc.
In any case, it is interesting that my Reef does not say "Made in Italy" anywhere on the frame, but that is not unusual for Italian bikes (it does have an Easton tubing sticker that says "Made in USA", however). The fork did come in a box that had the "Made in Italy" tag; if any component would be made in Taiwan I would suspect a carbon fork...