My wife and daughter will be in Italy for 12 days next month - Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan. I have an 84 Peugeot PH10L and an 84 Centurion ProTour, so why not a decent Italian from the same decade? The frameset will be built up and ridden - not looking for perfection or highly collectible.

Should I just watch the usual sources or is a bargain possible in Italy? Frameset or complete bike?

with the amount the airlines will charge to load the bike and fly it, (plus the cost of packaging) it will not be a bargain.

When one of my bike buddies went to Rome, regarding used bikes he said all the good ones are here in the States (and probably Belgium)

I'd focus on taking in as much food as possible, then when you're missing Italy upon your return, you can scratch that itch with a Ciocc.

The trick is to not tell them it's a bike, or you'll get charged the special fee that they charge for bikes. I knew a guy who told the airline person that his bike was a sculpture made from a bicycle frame and got around the fee that way. But I don't know what kind of deals are to be found in Italy so it could very well turn out to not be a bargain either way.

I've done this, and it was a lot of work. Keep in mind "cool" framesets are not just sitting around, you have to work to find them. That is exactly what we did, "before" we left for our trip. My wife has a niece in Northern Italy, and she happens to be fairly well connected. She found some gems including a Colnago and a couple of De Rosas. We ended up selling the parts off one bike, and the rest of the gruppos from the De Rosas are sitting in Bayern with my wife's family. The frames took a while, but they came back in a freight load. I may never duplicate this method, and believe me, I have been offered some incredible bikes in Bayern. If I could ship one at a time cost effectively, I'd be in a new business pronto. One thing you could try is to peruse various Euro ebay options. I'm not going to fill in the rest of the blanks, as you can figure the remainder out. Buying a bike can be done though by walking into a shop in Italy, and there was a shop in Cecina, south of Livorno, that had some pieces that were quite desirable. Again shipping can be expensive for a complete frame and fork, more than expensive for a complete bike. Another way to work this though is to use a freight provider to bring back a quantity.

When I was in Italy a couple years ago I don't recall seeing *ANY* race type bikes that weren't aluminum or carbon fiber. There was plenty of old steel, but it was city bikes like Umberto Dei and old Atala and Bianchi city bikes. Beautiful bikes, but perhaps not quite what you had in mind.

Look for a "mostra scambio", or swap. A friend recently got back from 3 days in Italy with a grail level road bike. Shipping an entire bike will cost you about $175, if you do the packing yourself. Bike boxes are hard to find. Have fun and good luck. Post any finds here.

Thanks for the replies. I don't think I will burden the wife with bike hunting.

Might want to see what Citoyen du Monde has to say.

From what Gilberto has said, Belgium and the Netherlands are the places to find great bikes at bargain prices. Larger sizes near the sea, smaller ones farther inland was the general rule. If you know anyone in the U.S. military who's stationed in Europe, and who might want to "sell" you a bike, they get great deals on shipping.

I think Italian racing bikes must be more common in the US than in Italy, judging by how many of them are around.

IMO, you're better off making a pilgrimage to Los Angeles than Italy for vintage steel.

CDM has had an opportunity to turn this into an art form. Mucho practice it appears. The tricky part of this is finding "the" bike. It could take some time while you are there. Would you rather visit restaurants, museums, visit beautiful villages and cities, shop, do a little riding, sit around and drink wine, have a gelato, visit art galleries, or dig around in old bike shops. Wait, don't answer that. Look, there are bikes in Italy to buy, just like there are beautiful bikes to purchase in St. Paul/Minneapolis. If you have the cash and time, this is all possible. We do see bikes to buy each time we visit, but truth be told, we generally find more bikes in Bayern. Probably because our family knows I am very much interested in nice quality, older steel racing bikes that are just sitting around in peoples' garages. That's where the real interesting finds are for me.

By the way Wildwood, please enjoy your visit to a beautiful country. Try if you can to relax in a smaller town for a day with your family. You may notice a very appealing lifestyle unfolding in front of you. We have, every time and region we visit. The big cities you mention certainly have their charms, but we really like the smaller villages and towns as well.

seach online for italian free ads / local listings websites, seaching for 'bici' and 'campagnolo'. You might find it hard to beat the locals to the great deals but you might find something. The hard part might be getting it home,

When I was in Milano last year I frequented a few bike shops, and the only thing remotely vintage was an
old Ciocc which the shop wanted €500 for (it had some campy SR parts but otherwise no big deal).
I did go to the Vigorelli but everything was closed as it was August and the city practically shuts down.
If you do get to Milano go to the Rosignoli shop, its worth it (as is Masi if it's open).
There's some tips here too:
https://italiancyclingjournal.blogspo...986-story.html

Marty

I can't speak for bikes but when i was traveling Europe, I looked around quite a bit for musical instruments. I found many that piqued my interest but typically they were priced at the same numerical value or higher than they would've been in the us. Add to that the conversion rate at the time of 1.40 dollars/euro and there was no way I could afford to buy anything. My guess is you'd see a similar situation with the bikes if you managed to find one.

I had a blast trying to convince all my friends that things weren't actually expensive in europe. A bottle of shampoo costs $4.00 in the U.S. That same bottle costs 4 Euros in Italy. They were all hung up on the conversion factor. Now that I'm back home, all I worry about is the conversion factor.