just want your help guys in identifying a cinelli frame and fork

here the pictures:


https://cdn.sulitstatic.com/server2/i...d6714a0dc9.jpg

https://cdn.sulitstatic.com/server2/i...88f438e826.jpg

https://cdn2.sulitstatic.com/server2/...58d601fcc6.jpg

I have not seen a Cinelli with a seat stay that looks like that. How old is the frame? Is this repainted, it's weird that the Cinelli logo is painted like that? You may also want to post this in the Vintage section.

I would say no. Never saw a Cinelli with a raised C on the head tube.

Doesn't look like any Cinelli I've seen. What led you to think it is a Cinelli?

Is there a head badge under that paint?

Turn over the bike and look at the BB shell. Usually Cinelli frames are built with investment cast Cinelli BB shells. It should have Cinelli engraved on the shell.

That a bike was built with lugs made by cinelli doesnt mean it is a cinelli, in a matter of fact to get cinelli lugs and BB shells was quite easy back in the day. That said, that bike is not even close to a cinelli That thing looks more like an experiment using a frame from the 60's with re done seat stays.

Between you and me cinelli as a company made quite simplistic paint jobs and builds, good bikes but never went to something sophisticated as other manufacturers. Is not hard to just cut the logo from somewhere and just braze it over the tubes anyways.

However, they sold that Cinelli shell to other builders as well. I was gonna mention the BB, but then didn't know if it would prove anything.

Edit: OK, I thought I knew that they sold them but a recheck of my Cinelli book is ambiguous.

The Cinelli brand was acquired by a US corporation in the 1990s, when they began marketing a succession of decent but unremarkable Asian-built bikes alongside the classic lugged steel Supercorsa. Over the last couple of year they seem to have upped their game, but they're basically following the example of Haro's handling of the Masi brand.

While this bike could indeed be a Cinelli, it is not particularly special, and the powercoating is tacky and unnecessarily thick.

Can you give anymore detail on this? In 1997 Cinelli and Columbus tubing merged to form Gruppo S.r.l., both under Antonio Colombo, who is still alive and still running both. Is there some level of ownership over this? I had seen information that suggested that they were still making their aluminum frames in Milan until 2008 or 2009.

Edit: not that the bike in this thread is aluminum, just asking about your statement that things were Asian built.

RollCNY, you're right and I was wrong. Cinellii is and always has been an Italian company. I was shooting off based on the "American" look of the current products shown at cinelli-usa.com. And apparently Colombo is heavily influenced by US urban bike culture, to which Cinelli obviously markets heavily.

The frame is lugged and it appears to have cast dropouts, so it must be steel. Starting sometime after 1989 up to around 2004, Cinelli appears to have developed at least a dozen road and track bikes having limited size runs and indistinct marketing targets. Of course, there was always the Supercorsa and a handful of bikes for shows or very limited production, but as a force in competition and enthusiast bikes there seems to have been a lost decade for Cinelli, and now it is a very different company.

Yes, but my point was based on the assumption this is not Cinelli. If it says Cinelli on BB shell, it may or may not be a Cinelli frame. My Romic has Cinelli lugs, BB shell and originally also the fork crown. My point was that if you don't see Cinelli on the BB shell, you know for sure it isn't. The negative would be certain. The positive could be false.

There's no way that's a Cinelli.