He lives in Kenya, I don't remember seeing a Walmart when I was there.

Oops, I didn't take note of his location. If Walmart are not already there, I'm sure they are investigating the possibility.

Maybe where he's at, I was in Mombasa. I don't even remember seeing paved roads.

we don`t have wall mart here and i don't think they are even planing on setting up shop here FYI the biggest multinational i can think of here is KFC ,other bike shops only sale parts for old school English style roadsters what are known as black mambas around here,if you are lucky enough they might sale parts for mountain bikes ,road bikes are like legends around here ,people literally stop to look at my bike as probably it the first and last of its kind that they might see in a long time

I inherited a Corso in the 1980s. Rode it for years, then put it on a Kinetic. Now I'm refurbishing it. The old Suntour Seven derailleur is shot. I'm stripping the paint to get at rust. Should I save anything? Someone above called for the landfill, but I don't want to for sentimental reasons.

hey please upload some photos id love to see that bike

A pic
 

Afraid there's not much to show anymore. I've disassembled the bike and taken off all the paint except for what you see. The bike used to look a lot like yours but was yellow and in worse repair. I'm replacing everything other than maybe the cassette and the old-fashioned shifters, which were on the downtube. Haven't decided whether to sand off the Corso decal you see here. I'd like to keep it, but it would be hard to remove the remaining paint and not further damage the decal.

I just bought a Corso Special Valentino this afternoon after lunch, Campy downtube shifters, Universal brakes, Suntour Honor RD and what looks like a Simplex FD, in decent condition. Looks like the work of Atala or Chiorda(who also made the Italian bicycles for K-Mart and J.C. Penney, a guy at my bike co-op tells me.). I got it at a used furniture place, they threw in some pannier bags(no rack on the bike, though) and an Avanti handlebar bag. For less than lunch cost. I always check out front of the used furniture place, because sometimes a gem, (or in this case, an interesting rock) shows up out of the blue. Where I live, in the flyover country, Italian bikes are not an everyday sight. It will be fun to have this Italian Steed roaming the prairies.

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AFAIK all of the Corso badged machines were produced by Cesare Rizzato (Atala, Atlantica, Dei, Lygie, Maino, Radius & others).

T-Mar will be along momentarily to put things right if am incorrect. ;)

​​​​​​​Look forward to pictures...

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Sal Corso did a lot to import Italian bikes into the US, most notably Atala. He did have his name put on some of his bikes. I'm not sure why he saved that for the low end ones. ;)

discarded mattress ... bed bugs...be careful

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Don't miss "The L-Shaped Room" with Leslie Caron -

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057239/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_1

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I've seen Corsa manufactured by both Carnielli and Rizzato. Salvatore Corso was an importer for both Atala and Bottecchia, so it's not surprising to see Corso bicycles from both Rizzato and Carnielli. Given the apparent era, if it's Rizzato, manufacture, it will have an open format serial number on the upper seat tube while a Carnielli built frame will have the serial number on the underside of the bottom bracket shell.

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Thank you T-Mar! :thumb:

Always outstanding information. :)


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Thanks Juvela, I had no idea of the provenance and lineage of these bikes. I've never seen one before today.

By the way, mine appears to be a Rizzato.

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Rizzato ones will have the (nominal) frame size in inches marked in two places on the underside of the bottom bracket shell -

http://i66.tinypic.com/29uu0is.jpg

As mentioned by T-Mar, serials are marked on the drive side of the seat tube a few cms below the seat lug. The first two characters are numerals which give the year of manufacture -

http://i67.tinypic.com/292pjli.jpg

If the cycle has a cottered steel chainset you may find an Atala marking on the centre section of the bottom bracket spindle.

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I'll try and get some pictures out as I have stripped the Corso for polishing and rehab of some of the parts, getting rid of all the old axle grease and the like. The frame weighs 6.1 pounds, the fork 1.8 pounds, all by themselves. Some features are as above, others are quite different.