Just paid $350.00 for this Saronni (Colnago) too good to be true? The seat stays and fork crown looked legit but opinions here

https://www.ebay.com/itm/221283658254...84.m1439.l2648

Let me preface this by saying my memory is tenuous, BUT as I recall it, Colnago did make these (perhaps poor wording, had them made under contract). I remember a guy riding one of these at an event and people were asking about it - I think it might have been a euro model and, as I recall, it had an odd head badge.

It looks original to me. You got a great deal on that frameset.

Do you mean this?

That's it! Not senile (yet).

Man, that's one big bike.

Well, the seller is "hoax"

I'll tell you what I know which isn't f&^k-all, really.


Yes, there were Colnago Saronni's made after he won the Worlds in 1982. But there is a lot of conversation about whether they are made by Colnago or BMZ made them. Biemmezeta made frames of high and low quality for a number of builders, so it's not without reason. They also used aero tubing Biemmezeta Aero' which most folks consider Columbus. They sold nearly everything under different labels.

Your frame is missing the Saronni headbadge and most Saronnis had "Saronni" cast into the seat stays at the seat tube cluster, not "S". But that doesn't mean they didn't change somewhere down the line.

Most people say the paint is fragile-- as is yours.

Your fork crown is definitely a Saronni fork crown. Those would be really hard to fake.

You can buy the decals, so it's not impossible to fake, but your frame has a lot of the right sort of wear.

Colnago hardly every used three braze on brake cable guides on the top tube and almost never that sort back then. See the two in the photos below.

I'd bet you have a real Colnago Saronni, whether it was manufactured by Colnago or not is another question, but BMZ built a LOT of frames for a LOT of marques.

The only question is: Saronni's came in high end and low end models. Which do you have? Given it's aero and no one thinks that BMZ drew their own tubing, you should have a high end frame and that should be Columbus.


Here is some media:

Decals, faithful recreations by the Aussie:











NOT MY PHOTOS

https://www.cycleexif.com/colnago-saronni

I think you did alright!

Thanks guys and girls of the C/V world-nothing worse than feeding the addiction with stuff that has been cut with er I mean buying something that is not what is represented to be...man I almost sounded like some sort of addict there....

I think you did not get burned.

This is part of the reason why I come to the forums, for information like this. maybe 1 in 10,000 people on the street would know this. Fantastic.

I think more like 1 in 100,000.

I looked in on this thread early on. I had no firm information to provide other than the fork S was close but the seat stay caps were different.

If the geometry is typical Colnago you should like it very much.

I do not know very much, but a galaxy of people know less. In researching my own bike, I learned that Colnago, along with other famous marques, outsourced frames when orders flooded their capacity to make them. Lesser names in the Italian pantheon have been forgotten, or their names have faded with time. Nevertheless, I say with some confidence that the craftsmanship and skill was still there, which was why they were selected to build in proxy in the first place. I do not think it's a fuzzy myth that many Italian frame producers were family emanations that were identifiable with a town or village, and that the tradition of artisanship was very much alive and well. One of the privileges of being a C&V person is that some of us are lucky enough to own a relic from this era.

I studied the pics; I think you have a very nice frame. It looks fabulous!

More photos of a known Colnago Saronni that has been repainted. People have noted a number of similarities to the Colnago Master frames of this vintage.

Colnago started making budget level frames and went from high end Columbus to low end Tretubi but certainly you have something else. The only thing that says your frame may be a BMZ made for Colnago are the cable guides. Different sort than Colnago used and three instead of two. But BMZ made a lot of frames for a lot of famous marques and very high quality at that.













Saronni advert:



link to the larger size should you want it:

https://bobbysands.smugmug.com/photos...4k4tTzN-X3.jpg



Also, toward the end of the line Colnago stopped making Saronnis completely and the marque was taken over by Technotrat. I found a couple shoddy photos of a Technotrat Sarroni and there is nothing on the seat stays at the cluster.


Technotrat advert:







I want to thank my buddy Noe. I gave him a ring in Australia and he tipped me off to these photos and the Technotrat connection. I don't want you fellows to think I hadallthis my head. Doesn't seem as if Saronnis were ever marketed in the USA, or certainly not in any numbers, but they are more prevalent on the Continent and some made their way to Aussie.


PS:
Saronni winning the Worlds at Goodwood in 1982 was my first real moment of clarity. So I have a soft spot for all this.

So the rest of this is just eye candy. Sorry.



Saronni red.









Bonus points if you can name the excellent racer in 2nd place here, more bonus points if you can name the fellow he sabotaged to get there. And I'll say it now- that fellow in third is the one of the greatest-- alright I'll say greatest fellow bogtrotter to ever put his arm though the sleeve of a jersey- Sean "King" Kelly.

Agreed! The fact that Hoax originally listed the bike for $499 opener with a $699 Buy It Now... $350 being half of his golden gravy price is a good deal. Nice score indeed, looking forward to seeing it built up!

I copied the photos from the original Ebay advert before they are lost. We've done a lot work on this topic so we'll keep it together for posterity, yeah?

P.S. Excellent roof top photos (?!)

Really? He looks too big to be Kelly.

Regardless of heritage, I dig it.

Saronni accepts his World Championship medal and jersey.



Kelly salutes the crowd:

I'd like it better in my garage. That thing could say Huffy and I'd like it.
No one I ride with knows Italian bikes from Chef Boyardee.
I'm just now getting a few of them to say "Oh, steel. Nice."

Great job; time to build for pleasure, bike for fun....

Same here. The people I ride with think Pashley repop bikes are the cream of the crop, and gaspipe balloon tire bikes are a close second. They do seem to be impressed by my old road bikes though I don't know if they really understand the differences between my bikes and theirs.,,,,BD

Greg LeMond

You are correct. I don't think it was ever explained why he took the win from Boyer. I know they weren't chummy, but had Lemond not come across the gap, bringing Kelly and Saronni with him, Boyer might just have been World Champion. You'll notice Lemond didn't wait for the bunch sprint in 1983.