I had a similar revelation recently. My 1986 Trek 520 (with sport touring rather than full on touring geometry) rides wayyyy better with 28mm rather than 33mm tires. All this despite getting this bike specifically to make use of the greater tire clearance...ah well.

I will disagree. The Pinarello Stelvio and the Pinarello Vuelta were brazed with lugs the Pinarello Dyna and Pinarello Radius were TIG welded and offered superb craftsmanship for steel frames. The Pinarello alumnium frames effectively had ugly, garish and unpolished welds which confirms the worst finish.

I think that was a reference to the paint and decal finishes, which are known to frequently (but of course not always) be extremely fragile.

It would be fair to say that the Pinarello aluminum frames had both superb craftsmanship and honest unpolished welds, whose workmanship has received praise from those more knowledgeable about metal fabrication than us.

There were frames much better made than the Pinarello Paris with the ugly welds those were the Cannondale Caad 4, Caad 5, Caad 6 and Caad 7 from the Saeco Estro Team as well as the Willier Triestina l'Alpe D'huez Mortirolo Scandium from the Mercatone Uno Team, the Orbea bikes from the Euskadi Euskaltel Team and the De Rosa Merak bikes from the Team Alessio just to name a few.
I am all ears to hear about the praise about the supposed quality of grossly unpolished welds of a Dedacciai 7003 ABT alumnium frame. Most of the tour de France wins for Pinarello were made on 100% steel and on 100% carbon frames and just two tour de France won with the 7003 ABT aluminium frames.

I just commented in a recent thread here on the quality of workmanship in my Wilier Alpe D’Huez.

It really looks like my 1989 Supercorsa could take 28s. But we may never know, since I probably won’t ever swap out my 23s.

Agree 100%

Ironically it would also be a return to the specification of early Supercorsas, most of which look like they would easily accommodate at least 32s, probably 35s. Not that 28s/30s wouldn’t be enough, but it’s always good to have room to grow on a bicycle intended for long term ownership…

Yeah, I went around the hamster wheel on that one. It's one of those situations where nothing really scans right... and as a grammatical descriptivist, the wronger it scans, the wronger it probably is. So I guessed.

Language dork digression:

I blame a bunch of Latin-worshippers in the 18th Century for screwing up the rules, (improperly so-called,) of English grammar. They were wrong in multiple directions. First, English is a Germanic-branch Indo-European langauge, not an Italic-branch one, so trying to impose the structure of one onto the other is likely to end badly. Second, most of what English took from Norman French was vocabulary, not grammar. Third, and most importantly, among Indo-European languages, English is really, really weird. We have a radically simplified grammar: no gender, no case, SVO word order. (Except for some left-over Celtic oddities like "meaningless do.") Our vocabulary is from everywhere. And English spelling is pathological. (Although historically interesting, because the weird corners of it tend to preserve useful information about the history of the words.)

The number one rule of English grammar is this: If Ms. Grundy taught it to you in the 3rd grade, it's likely to be wrong. This is not her fault... many of the rules she was taught to teach you are not rules, and never have been. ("Thou shalt never split thine infinitives" is my favorite example of this.) And the interesting rules, like adjective order, are so automatic that most people don't even know that they're rules.

--Shannon

* I'm also a "functional punctuator", as demonstrated by damned near everything I write.

I have no problem with your preferring polished welds. What you don't get is that it's purely subjective: a matter of taste. Many people, including me, admire the beautifully welded "stack of dimes" look on an aluminum frame. If you don't like the look, fine. But don't write of unpolished aluminum welds as if they're objectively ugly. That's just you, and it's insulting to people who own and take pride in such bikes.

Example: Frank the Welder was at one time a frequent presence on Bike Forums and prided himself on his unpolished aluminum welds. People here spoke of his work with admiration and respect.

Here's Frank's website, and here's an example of his beautiful work:

All in the eye of the beholder.
That image is a good example of what keeps me from shelling out for a modern bicycle.
Grandson got himself a dept store cookie cutter Raleigh "Ridge" with that construction type. It's especially glaring at the conjunction of the rear triangle, and is a very good deterrent for me, along with the "modern" geometry.

-D.S.

I know who Frank the Welder is and he was a frame builder at Yeti and one of the very few who skilfully mastered the art of welding Easton aluminium. The Specialized S Works M2 and M4 as well as the Univega Boralyn, the GT Edge used by the Team Lotto, the first gen of Giant TCR, the 2003 Trek 2300 and 2500 had unpolished welds but it isn't an issue for me on these frames. Where as on an Italian brand, I expect something much more refined. Cinnelli also made an ultra lightweight bike frame called the starlight made of Columbus StarshipCinnelli Starlight but at 1549,99$ as a sticker price tag Cinnelli Starlight , I have much higher expectations regarding the finish of the frame. To each their own

Yes me too, all depends of who does the welding and how skilfully he is when welding aluminium.

17 sizes! One of which is PERFECT for me and two more are perfectly acceptable. The good old days continue.

It depends on whom you ask! People here in C&V live and breathe bicycles, and we appreciate many qualities a bike can have, including workmanship that is better than it needs to be for the designated function. Yet there are people who are "into" cycling to lesser degrees who might admire or remember one bike or another. And there are also people who barely ever get on a bike and might be aware of only a few names. With that last category, you might ask what the most famous bike brand is. In the US, folks might say Schwinn, and in Canada, I guess it would be CCM. And the analogous Italian person is like to say Olmo or Bianchi.

Well said - to add to this sentiment - it also shows that a well respected producer still sees some viability to the classic marketplace.

You just need to have one bike from each builder

I'm almost there, I've never had a Pinarello that worked for me...

Cinelli did make bikes Pinarello. Problem solved.

The Cinelli SC is widely considered iconic for defining what became the gold standard for the next 50 years. All the other great marques which maybe sold more, had more money, won more, and so are better known to the layman, sit on Cinellis shoulders.

I like these kind of subjective questions, because they allow to distinguish the fanboys and laymen from those who really know and understand the history of the performance lightweight thoroughbred racing bike

My 1970ish Cinelli SC definitely seems better built than my 1985 Cinelli SC

1985 is when the new owners took over, I believe

1978 Antonio Colombo bought in. 1980 is the new logo and the original builder, Valsasina, retired. By 1983 Colombo has running the shop, Cino retired.

I think T-Mar would be a little better knowledgeable on the Canadian makers (I think there was even a canadian crescent), but some things were obvious to us average riders, especially during the early boom years. Most of us knew about the import restrictions on bicycles (wonder how much of a hand CCM had in that, and who's ears they had), and knew what to expect.
Just based on build quality, the Sekine operation was a god-send to those of us who liked decent build quality mass production bikes. It got to the point of CCM competing with everyone else on price, and the results were entirely predictable. CCM pretty well had the bottom rung with Raleigh being next, and then Sekine, etc.

-D.S.

According to Cinelli's website (including a vintage image with a date)

Ok then. Since I’m not getting a 2026 SC, I’m looking for an early to mid 70s SC. 59 ctt 57 TT.