Marinoni with Zona tubing

[eddief]

I spotted this gorgeous lugged frameset in a local shop. All my dimensions including longish chain stays, longish head tube with extension and a fine one of a kind paint job. Any inputs good or bad on Zona tubing? I know not the lightest and latest but how about for my club riding purposes?

Thanks as always.

[Ken Robb]

Yo Eddie, How many bikes will this make your total?

[eddief]

Ken,

I thought I was done. Every extra part in the garage now sold through ebay or elsewhere. Simple two bike inventory: the Rex and the TST that I speak of ad nauseum. So I'm down to a measily, is that how you spell measily?, two bikes. But still don't have the lugged steel with threaded steel fork. The Marinoni is just that.

[Big Dan]

I say, if you can easily remember how many bikes you have ..then you don't have enough of them.. :D

Let me go to my attic and check myself...

[Ken Robb]

OK, everybody NEEDS at least one of those. I have 5 myself. We did just sell Leslie's Mountain bike though. After riding her CSi she said she was ruined for lesser bikes.

[bcm119]

My completely subjective advice is to buy that Marinoni if it fits. I think Marinonis are beautifully made and tend to ride very well. They would be on a very short list of lugged frames I would like to have.

[dbrk]

Marinoni is, of course, from Montreal. They are also the Campagnolo importer for Canada. Mike Barry is good pals with them and a few seasons back Mike had them build some cross-like all-arounders with top tube cable routing (cross-inspired) but lower bb. Mike labelled them "Cycles Alcyon" after an old French marque (now long gone). Mine is currently with JB for a repaint. These are among the very last lugged steel bikes from Marinoni and word has it that there will be no more. Marinoni has said that there is no market, no one wants them, and besides they take too long to build and are more expensive to make than TIG'd aluminum. So, eddie, if you love this bike get it because there won't likely be more steel Marinonis. Nice bikes, great value, smartly designed. Enjoy!

dbrk

[Climb01742]

eddie, another option is one i'm taking...get a custom merckx corsa (sorta) 0.1. choose your geo, choose your color and get a sweet svelte eddy! :p

[Dr. Doofus]

Marinoni builds a nice frame -- the lugged ones at least. Your Doctor had a TIG one that was harsher than his old pursuit bike....

Zone is Nivachrome...so, for 1996 its a cutting-edge steel frameset. The round stuff rides well...the megatube set is rather nasty.

[cpg]

I spotted this gorgeous lugged frameset in a local shop. All my dimensions including longish chain stays, longish head tube with extension and a fine one of a kind paint job. Any inputs good or bad on Zona tubing? I know not the lightest and latest but how about for my club riding purposes?

Thanks as always.

Don't worry about the tubing, that's not what will ultimately matter. FWIW I like Zona. Nivachrome is a very nice steel that has a tensile strength that's plenty strong and has plenty of ductility. Also the butts are reasonably long. Not too long. Not too short. Nivachrome also holds up to heat well which is important in this case because this frame is brass brazed. Nothing wrong with that just a factoid.

[bostondrunk]

I believe the Zona steel tubiing is basically an updated version of the older EL/OS tubing. Pretty straight forward good tubing.

[eddief]

There certainly are a lot of variables to tubes and alleged feel and other qualities.

http://www.torelli.com/home.html?http://www.torelli.com/mondonico/elos.html&1

[eddief]

First of all, in the last couple of days have ridden about 100 miles; about 50 on each of my two bikes. They both felt dialed in perfectly. What else do you think about while riding other than...? Is my reach correct? How does that saddle height feel? What about the fore and aft position? The answers were all in the affirmative. This was after moving the saddle forward a cm and going one cm longer on the stem on my TST the other day.

So I rode the Marinoni with my pedals and my seat height, but it would take a lot of fiddling to determine the "just right adjustments." Don't have the energy, interest, nor the dollars to get involved with another bike affair at this time.

Think I'm stuck with the idea of another custom when the time is right. If anyone is interested, the nice Marinoni is at Velosport Berkeley.