ORIA Tubing
 

So tell me, how good or bad is this tubing.... off an old Torelli with a mish mash of parts, Triomphe crank, FD, and RD, Super Record shifters, Modolo brakes, etc.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3313/...64ff2da1_o.jpg

Is this the only tubing sticker? It does not say much about the grade of the tubing. That said, your bike is probably a (mid/late) 80s Torelli Corsa Strada (most likely) or Super Strada. Oria was a smaller tubing manufacturer based in Verona, Italy that made several grades of tubing from economy ones (similar to 501) to high end ones. Mostly used in italian bikes (Olmo was a popular customer, esp. on their low end domestic products that used low end Oria tubing). Hard to tell what grade of tubing you have there, but they did make some really nice tubes. Torelli Corsa Stradas and Super Stradas used the higher end Oria products for a few years in the mid to late 80s. From the 90s on Oria had been focusing on aluminum and later carbon business. Not sure whether they still exist and/or producing steel frames.

Pinarello used it on some of their high end stuff in the 90s -including Miguel Indurain's steeds. Good stuff.

Yes to all the above^, and Pinarello was another big user for a spell, as was Luigi Montagner. I've never seen that particular tubing decal before, it seems like it may be one of the very early ones, as most I've seen list the tubing grade which is usually numbers, letters and decimals (like GM 0.0, and ML25). I've never seen a comprehensive fact sheet or catalog page that showed the entire line-up. Folks who know point out that Oria bought the raw tubing from Mannesmann, then finished them to their final "bicycle frame" products (this was something that both Deda and even Columbus did, too).

I have a Gios with Oria RANF tubing. It has cool straight reinforcing ridges (ala SLX, but there the ridges are helical). BF member T-mar told me the tubing was indeed were made by Mannesmann.

I too have a Torelli with Oria tubing but your sticker looks older than mine. Mine has about two thirds of the sticker left barely making out the number 9555 and have searched the web for its meaning. Info on Torelli's and Oria tubing is scarce. I contacted Torelli, but they too said they could not help me since it is one of the earlier bikes made and there are no records. I have come across some info like unworthy1 points out about numbers on another bike forum but am unsure of its full meaning:

ca 1988 from an old Bicycling magazine...

Oria ML25 (appears to be straight guage)
Head Tube 1.0mm
TT = 0.7
DT = 0.8
ST = 0.7
fork blades = 1.0mm
chainstays = 0.8mm
seatstays = .8mm
Tubeset weight 2078grams

The tubeset was used by Bianchi, Coppi and Moser. I think Pinarello also used them, too. Oria was pretty popular in the late 80 and early 90s.

Oria GM 0.0 was about 100g lighter and the one wiht 4 longitudinal ribs on the three main tubes.

Would it be possible to get a full pic of the bike? The more I ride mine, the more attached I get.

Here is a link with a comparison chart from different tubing manufacturers:

http://translate.google.com/translat...ogle.com#Teil2

I have a super clean 1988 Luigi Montagner that uses the Oria TT 0.9 tubing.

While it may not be as "high end" as some of my other bikes, it rides superbly and has an attractive look as well.

Fast handing, good on descents.

This one has fewer than 500 miles, and is holding up very nicely with its Suntour component mix.

In fact, some folks have tried to buy this bike just for the incredibly clean Suntour Superbe Pro and GPX goodies!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3574/...7ff87dc9_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3300/...af8181e3_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3548/...d827b877_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3573/...435f0e45_o.jpg

A quite enjoyable ride.

you don't see many Montagners, but they are very nice, IMHO, and yours is especially so.

Do you know where TC 0.8 would fall? I assume it's one of the lower-end tubings, but I am curious.

I picked up this Olmo last weekend, and had never heard of Oria tubing:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...o/DSCI0142.jpg

I sure hope I didn't overpay. I assumed a NOS Olmo had some inherent value, but I may be mistaken.

TC 0.8 was a plain gauge 0.8mm thin tubing. Columbus Aelle level. Not that bad, really.

Thank you!!

A local shop used to sell these in good, better, and best racing versions.

This was the entry level model.

Then an all Superbe Pro model.

....and finally a Campy version, which I believe was Record.

A Campy equipped version with tubulars sold to a friend last year for $650.

Same shape as mine, maybe the decal set was nicer, but otherwise very clean and original.