I've been looking for a budget vintage italian bike and found this today:



Still researching it. It is a late-80s(?) Giordana Scorpius. All SL tubing and Columbus and Columbus dropouts. Love the fuscia/purple. My first pink bike too.

Entry-level Campy bits- - if you know the group please let me know because the rear derailleur was swapped for Shimano at some point and I'd like to make it correct. I doubt the Matrix hubs and wheels are original, never heard of this make.

I'm not sure if the bars (Sakae) and Tioga stem are original, but they are suspect as well. Any info on original components welcome!

Nice!

believe Matrix was a Trek house brand.

Congrats! We need more close up and clear pics please!

Added some close-ups but can't get a good quality whole bike shot. I always run into size limits uploading hi-res images so have to post crappy ones. How does everyone do it?

Just joined ya in the first Italian Club! Gios Torino Super Record with a full super record group. Came from original owner. He said he rode it a in college a bit, but for the most part it had been sitting around until he recently had it tuned up. He even included the boxes that the derailleurs that some of the parts came in as well as a set of 1973 nuovo record derailleurs as well. Unfortunately it's a little a big for me, but still ride-able and super nice. It's a 57

This bike wont have any "original" components -- it was likely sold as a frameset.

Any complete Campy or Dura Ace/ 600 tri color/ Suntour Superbe Pro group would be "correct"

Those mono-planer brakes were on Athena , Chorus, or Record groups in that time period and the headset and crank does not look entry level

You get a period correct Athena/Chorus/Record rear derailleur and hubs with a set of nice tubulars built up on them , plus bars and stem from Cinelli/ITM/3T , and you have something special ---

Love the paint scheme -- its a beautiful bike !

Love that bike! Even the font is cool. What a score.

Great info. Thank you.

Diggin' the paint and overall look. A very cool "first Italian."
Someday I too shall have my first...

I had one pass though my hands. They are well designed, very good riding bikes. I also had a higher end model. Both were nice bikes and capable riders.

A very underestimated brand, IMO.

I had the same problem with size limits and I discovered that I could save as a jpeg in MS Paint. Now I can upload a pic to post, and double-click to adjust the size.

Another way is to post your pics to a free site like Flickr and post the picture URL with [img] in front of the URL and [/img] after the URL.

Giordana is hardly a "budget" Italian, but if you got it for a budget price, excellent for you. Always pretty bikes, and with Campy stuff, very nice.

I'm not aware of Matrix hubs, but Matrix wheels were sort of a "house" brand for Trek, as the factory was located right down the road. Not sure it was Trek "owned," but being right there, with no shipping costs, probably very convenient. Matrix often mimicked the Wolber rims of the day, with Titans = Super Champion Alpine, and ISO/ISO II's = Profil, Profil GTX, etc. Often the older Matrix rims were laced to Maillard hubs, go figure.

Nice bike. I'll PM you on the stem and bars...

Giordana is hardly a "budget" Italian, but if you got it for a budget price, excellent for you. Always pretty bikes, and with Campy stuff, very nice.

I'm not aware of Matrix hubs, but Matrix wheels were sort of a "house" brand for Trek, as the factory was located right down the road. Not sure it was Trek "owned," but being right there, with no shipping costs, probably very convenient. Matrix often mimicked the Wolber rims of the day, with Titans = Super Champion Alpine, and ISO/ISO II's = Profil, Profil GTX, etc. Often the older Matrix rims were laced to Maillard hubs, go figure.

Nice bike. I'll PM you on the stem and bars...

By the way, that's quite a rear cluster for San Francisco. You must be one heck of a climber.

Yeah, I was speaking out of ignorance when I called the bike "budget" and the Campy bits "entry level". The seller said "well it isn't Super Record or anything" and so I made some assumptions. And the workmanship and forged bits on the frame are quite nice. Always learning . . . Looks like a matching rear derailleur will be around $50-75.

The seller, a bike mechanic at a very cool South Bay shop, also put a NOS Sachs freewheel on it. The South Bay is relatively flat. : )

I paid $250 for it. Craigslist. Quite a deal because the seller did a lube/tuneup too!

$250

Theft, in a good way.

Yes, the Trek 760 had Matrix Titans which were of Specialized manufacture.

Nice snag! Dig the color!

Welcome to the Giordana club. Not that much about these bikes out there. My 1991 Giordana catalog has the Scorpius of that year as Ferrari Red. My 1989 Antares is white with Fuscia accents on the fork and chain stays. Maybe around the same year? Billato Brothers in Italy built these and are still around.

If you give me a size I can give you the specs on the frame geometry.

My Antares (my 1st Italian)



And the Superleggero I'm just about finished with.



The Antares rides really sweetly. The jury is still out on the Superleggero, still haven't gotten a calm day to really shake it out.

Here's a blog at a local shop about these bikes.

https://contenderbicycles.com/classic...-superleggero/

He did buy it from a mechanic -- perhaps the guy wasnt emotionally attached to it at all and just put a price on it to move it quick ------

unlike myself, who would price that bike at $600, and then cry if someone actually stepped up and gave me money for it -- LOL (I'm not very good at selling my old stuff)

I hear you about selling stuff for a fair price and still feeling loss . . .

Another good thing about this buy is that I had sold my Panasonic touring bike for $250 the day before, so it felt more like a trade.

Just beautiful, both of them. Wonderful and fun paint schemes. Do you know if there is any truth to the idea that the frames were built in Italy but painted in the US?

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

This one is 54cm c-c.

Well, this is what Roberto Billato responded with when I emailed him about the bikes:

"Nice to receive your enquiry , checking your photos I could tell that it was made in our workshop in Italy …some years ago …just to be sure please bring some more photo under the bottom bracket to check a serial number there .

The paint job isn’t originally made in Italy , so I think this frame it was re-painted ( well) in USA as also the Giordana decals are not original , but you can ask to Gita USA about when it was re-painted this frame .

BTW , Excel tubing were made in aerospace factory In France –Lyon area- and prepared for professional cycle use by Eng. Theodore Rezze , at that time we used these tubing sets also for Greg LeMond frames collection and for some Billato’s , the best characteristic were the strength and the lightweight coming from the special steel HT and the thickness of the tubing walls , of course we were welding these frames with special brass material with high percentuage of silver to connect tubing and cast lugs .

Glad to listen your are still enthusiastic for our old job , I’m still producing steel lightweight framesets with Columbus tubing even if actually mostly are made with carbon fibre , if you have a free time you can have a look on FB reaching Billato cycles to see my new models … some update will be soon as well as the new website where you can buy online too.

Hope I answered to your question , if any more info needs , pls feel free to contact me again"

So I take it that means that the paint jobs were done in the U.S.

Love the color!

I just took some quick cellphone pics from the 1991 catalog to give you the geometry chart and to give you their description of the bike.