Hi, Nate Taylor here. Please reach out to me at nate@sscycleworks.com for inquiries on parts availabilities and shipping estimates.
South Salem Cycleworks Museum:
Owner Michael Wolfe's Torelli 63cm Torelli 20th Anniversario bicycle
Owner Michael Wolfe's 63 cm Torelli 20th Anniversario Bicycle
Jump straight to the photos | Plus, a gallery of cyclists enjoying their Torelli Anniversario bikes
The frameset:
- Columbus Foco lugged tubeset with American paint & chrome. Bill McGann says with the red being the leading color, it’s the Hungarian flag scheme. Italian would have green leading. It was just as confusing for the migrant workers in the fields as I rode by, as I was greeted with cries of “Viva Mexico”!
- Built with both a pump peg and chain hanger.
- 63cm seat tube
- 61.5cm top tube
- 19.5cm head tube
- 41.0cm chainstay
- 100.0cm wheelbase
- 70mm bottom brackets drop
- 1” threadless steel steering tube
- 19.75 lbs weight with pump and pedals
- Built in 2000, #75 of 100, by Antonio & Mauro Mondonico.
Components mounted on the frameset:
- San Marco Rolls Ti saddle, Torelli embroidered.
- USE Alien Carbon 27.2 seatpost
- Campagnolo Record 10s ergoshifters
- Campagnolo Record front braze-on derailleur
- Campagnolo Record Carbon square taper 175/39/53 crankset with Stronglight Italian Red/Green Limited-Edition rings.
- Campagnolo Record Italian threaded 102mm bottom bracket
- Time RXS Titan Carbon pedals
- Campagnolo Record chain with Connex Masterlink
- Campagnolo Record rear derailleur
- Campagnolo Record 10-speed 13-26 cassette
- Campagnolo Record Differential brake calipers
- Torelli Modular 28-hole front hub
- Mavic CXP 33 28-hole front rim
- Front wheel built with DT Revolution 15/17/15 spokes, with DT alloy nipples, radial build.
- Torelli Modular 32-hole rear hub
- Mavic CXP 33 32-hole rear rim
- Rear wheel built with DT Revolution 14/17/14 gauge spokes driveside, cross three; 15/17/15 gauge spokesnon-driveside, with alloy nipples, cross two.
- Salsa Rasta Flip-Off Titanium quick releases
- Rox rim strips
- Michelin Airstop threadless tubes
- Vredestein Fortezza TriComp 700 x 23 tires
- Record 1” threaded headset
- 3T Status 13cm stem
- Easton EC90 carbon bar, 44cm o-o.
- Supacaz Italian handlebar wrap
- Avocet 50 Altimeter
- Torelli carbon cages
- Silca frame pump with Campagnolo steel head
-
Louis Garneau “Campagnolo” seatbag
About the bike:
Darren Lupher was the outside Torelli sales representative in the summer of 1997, and introduced me to Bill McGann, who convinced me that somehow, I could sell Italian road frames in Salem, Oregon. The Mondonicos had a West Coast measureing tour that fall. It was to celebrate the Mondonico's 70th anniversary, based on Antonio’s father having started framebuilding in 1929, and I was too new to warrant having them stop at South Salem Cycleworks. I ended up taking a vanload of folks to Tacoma to get measured, where I met Jim Couch and Jim Finell of Spoke and Sprocket who were hosting the measurement stop.
When Mondonico determined that I needed a 61.5cm top tube, still using the 13cm stem I used on my bikes, I was skeptical, and concerned that I would have a frame that a national caliber racer could appreciate, but I would be disappointed with.
The frame was made of a blend Columbus ELOS, and the tubeset then called NEMO, which was Columbus’s top tier tubeset. Mondonico refused to make a frame my size entirely out of Nemo, disappointing me. It was later explained to me that a frame out of only Nemo would have been a whippy frame for someone of my stature. The frameset arrived the following spring, and I built it with Record 9-speed, Record titanium seatpost and Mavic Open Pro rims.
I was astonished at the ride quality – nothing I’d owned or ridden in nearly two decades gave me the exuberance, and yet control, that it did.
In 1999, Bill announced he would be selling 20th Anniversario Torelli frames – 100 of them and all were to be custom frames, built by the Mondonico’s. ELOS and NEMO had been superseded by FOCO, and a similar tubeset, again called NEMO. FOCO was a Thermachrome tubeset, where regardless of how the tubes were joined, there was no loss or gain of tensile strength – “almost as though the frame had been pulled out of a vat”! The wall thicknesses were .7/.4/.7mm.
Mondonico frames continued to use pinned-lug construction, drilling a hole through a lug and the joining tube to hold the joint together while aligning the frame, prior to brazing. Though a labor-intensive procedure, it was an important part of building frames in the era of Reynolds 531 and Columbus SL, and earlier steel tubesets. Those tubes lost tensile strength each time the torch was applied, and tack-welding meant a second pass of the torch after aligning the frames, to melt the brass or silver to adhere the lugs to the tubes. Even with the new thermachrome steel, the Mondonico’s continued to use pinned-lug construction to make as perfect a frame as possible.
The new NEMO shared those wall thicknesses, but the tubes were a Nivachrome main triangle. The tubes were combined with Cyclex steel fork blades and rear triangle, which did not have the thermachrome treatment.
20th anniverary engraviongs were in the bottom bracket shell, fork crowns and seat tube junction, while the paint scheme was to reflect the red, green and white of the Italian flag.
Bill wasn’t fixed on a paint scheme, and my accountant, Doug Knights, made nearly 30 drawings trying to find one that pleased him best!
One of my customers, Paige Anderson, who had ordered an ELOS frame from the trip to Tacoma, called me from Eastern Oregon, stating he wanted a 20th built with the new FOCO. I was reluctant to do so, as he’d yet to build the 70th anniversary ELOS and ride it. I would feel bad if the two frames rode the same.
I asked Bill if he had built his 20th Anniversario Torelli FOCO in hopes of comparing the ride qualities of the two tubesets. He hadn’t, as he’d displayed at a trade show, and “someone wanted it more than he did”!
The most frequent question I encountered on the 20th Anniversario Torelli, was what was the paint scheme? There were no pictures yet, and finally due to the pressure of those questions, I ordered a FOCO for myself to display with a possible Italian Flag paint scheme.
After building it, I was surprised to find I could detect a difference in the ride over my 70th anniversary ELOS. I had used CXP 33 rims because of the red anodization, knew they were 20 and more grams heavier, and used a carbon seatpost on the 20th. I traded the wheels and seat posts between the two bikes and went out to test ride once more. I reached the same conclusion, that the FOCO rode better. Having built his 70th anniversary ELOS, Paige Anderson went out on a Saturday morning ride with me, and halfway out, we traded bike and shoes. We’re about the same height, and he rode Speedplay pedals, while I rode Time. Within 20 yards, he exclaimed that he hadn’t expected such a difference in the ride quality, and we ordered him a FOCO when we returned to the shop.
The Mondonicos did a measurement tour for the 20th Anniversario Torelli’s, and I was told that South Salem Cycleworks sold more of them than any other shop, to my surprise.
In August of 2005, John Pink, Tom Mundal and I rode the Blackberry Century on our 20th Anniversario Torellis in a paceline. It was a very noticeable!
Photos of the 20th Anniversario:
Side view
Here's the other side of the bike
Front view
Straight on front view.
Side view of the cockpit
The cockpit from behind
The left ergoshifter
The head tube and it's special decal
The headtube/downtube junction, shjowing the special chromed and pantographed short-point lug.
The pantographed fork crown.
The seat cluster and the numbered decal each Anniversario frame got.
The other side of the seat cluster
Top tube with the motto that means, "The Bicycle That Wins".
Center of the top tube
The USE Alien Carbon seat post.
A Selle San Marco Rolls saddle with Titanium rails and embroidered with the Torelli logos.
Close-up of the bottom bracket junction, showing the engraved anniversary shell and the Columbus Foco tubing sticker.
Closer view of the Columbus Foco decal.
One of the Time RXS Titan Carbon pedals
Another view of one of the Time pedals.
A Torelli carbon cage mounted on the seat tube.
The rear brake bridge
Left chainstay with a decal that translates to "My Love".
Chain hanger brazed to the right seat stay.
Here's the bike's Campagnolo rear Record Carbon Derailleur
Here's one of the Mavic red anodized CXP33 rims
Close-up of one of the Vredestein Fortezza TriComp 700 x 23 tires
The front wheel, radially laced onto a Torelli Modular hub. The flanges can be changed out for different drillings and colors.
Side view of the front hub.
Looking down on the rear hub
Here's the rear hub.
Here's a closer view
And below, in no particular order, are photos of others enjoying their own Torelli Anniversarios.
Lots of friends at Oregon's Silver Creek Falls in 2003
Out for a ride on Torelli Anniversario bikes in August of 2005.
At Silver Falls in 2005.
A moment of repose in 2005.
Lots of sparkle in this picture in my workshop.
In my shop window in 2005.
Angela near the covered bridge
A customer's 20th Anniversary bike in my shop.
In Buena Vista, a town south of Salem, Oregon.
A gent cruises on the coast with a lighthouse behind him.
Newport Bay in 2005
Newport Bay in 2006.
At McKenzie Summit in 2014. Third bike from the left.
Paul & Lynea at McKenzie Summit
Here I am at the summit in 2006.
2015: Here I am with Torelli founder and former owner Bill McGann. He sold the firm in 2007.
Patti's bike partly assembled
From a slightly different angle
Patti at Silver Falls.
Riding on the coast, near the lighthouse, in 2006.
2015: An Anniversario in my shop with an adjustable stem.
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