One man brand
You will be only the second people outside the company to see this,’ says Alcide Basso. ‘The others were from Tour magazine.’ No surprise; if it was anybody it would have to be journalists from a German cycling publication. Basso likes the Germans.
The catalogue he shows us is from 1978 and on the face of it might be any catalogue for a bike company of that era, featuring steel bikes made by Basso at its factory in Vicenza, northern Italy, and with pictures of men with brazing torches to prove it.
The bikes are skinny steel while the parts are proudly Campagnolo. Basso likes Campagnolo a lot too, but there is a striking difference here. Long before the interested customer gets to see the bikes in the catalogue they’re treated to a long discussion on bike position, geometry and biomechanics, followed by several sections that look more like white papers than marketing material. There is a lengthy exposition on brazing, including close-up magnifications of steel tube structures as well as explanations of the heat-treating techniques that best serve Columbus SL
