Words James Witts Photography Aaron Guy Leroux
‘I experiment because everything interests me. There is just too much to learn, but I think about perfection in everything I do; it is always in my mind. I think about Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel.
‘If you spend a lifetime at the bench and you give everything, maybe before you die you can be a fingertip away from perfection – a fingertip away from touching God. We can try, no?’
This quote from Dario Pegoretti was recalled in a tribute written by Silca’s Josh Poertner after the Italian framebuilder died from a heart attack in 2018. Pegoretti was just 62 years old.
For many he was the Godfather of Framers, who laid his artistic foundations by working for the masses before refining his craft on bespoke, artisan projects. He wasn’t just the face of the brand, he was the face of an industry, known for being both difficult and brilliant and for creating frames that cast a spell around the world.
For years Pegoretti had struggled to earn a living, but the second decade of the new millennium was his time. Interest in his work reached a peak.
And then time stopped. Leaving behind… what? What happens when the talisman disappears? When a figure so entwined with a brand, a feeling, an emotion, is gone? Leave the welding tools and spray gun to rust and gather dust?
Anonymity of the artisan
‘We knew Dario would want us to continue,’ says Cristina Wurdig, who handles marketing and communications for the Pegoretti brand. ‘Of course, things changed a lot from the human side.
‘Everyone knew Dario and his face and his look [shoulder-length white hair, white stubble, piercing eyes, every inch the thoughtful rock star]. But Dario was unique; you could not replicate his charisma. So we don’t try.
‘We have been in London’s King’s Cross, where we took over a gallery-style showroom to meet existing and potential clients, and we didn’t market with Dario. Instead, we very much focus our branding on the hands.
‘By that I mean that we reach the same level of craftsmanship as before, following the same practices, by experts in their field, but a name isn’t required. When a rider asks me, “Who made my bike? Was it [framebuilders] Andrea [Meggiorini], Gianmaria [Citron] or Leonardo [Dalla Mura]?” I say it doesn’t matter. We follow Dario’s philosophy of ingenuity and artistry.’
From that list there is one notable absentee. Though the brand now focusses on quality control from artisans who work in the shadows, the company’s head of production, Pietro Pietricola, shines bright in the bike industry, revered as one of the finest craftsmen around.
Dario Pegoretti was one of the earliest pioneers of TIG welding steel frames, and Pietricola continues that mastery. The pair worked together for nearly 20 years, and whereas Pegoretti had a flamboyance and, at times, brusqueness to him, Pietricola is more considered and reserved.
‘Before Dario passed, I’d walk into the workshop and I’d see Pietro lift his hand and say “ciao” from behind a welding mask in a “don’t disturb me” kind of way,’ reflects Wurdig. ‘He epitomises the focus and detail of Pegoretti.’
In a short promotional video about Pegoretti, Pietricola comes across as a reluctant hero. ‘I listen to music and weld,’ he says. ‘That’s what I like.’ Answering an unspoken question about his role, he looks confused. ‘Am I a framebuilder? If you can call it that. Am I a painter? Who knows. I am a… I don’t know. I don’t have an exact answer. I do a bit of everything. Or maybe nothing.’
He glances at the camera, a casual smile etched on his face before returning to screwing the Pegoretti headbadge onto a recent creation. The Pegoretti brand circa 2022 might intentionally lack a public face, but in Pietricola the company maintains its peculiar blend of technical expertise, artistry and aloofness.
Look back to look forward
To understand where the Pegoretti brand is today – handcrafting 280 to 300 frames each year, averaging six to eight months for a customised piece – you need to understand Dario Pegoretti, where he came from, his highs, his lows and why CycleFit’s Phil Cavell ‘considers it an honour that we are now representing Pegoretti in London’.
Pegoretti’s long and at times arduous journey to the pantheons of great framebuilders started at just 18 years old in the mid-1970s. It’s when he enjoyed his first taste of working in a Veronese bike workshop, being taught under the auspices of his father-in-law Luigino Milano.
Gino, as he was known, was a talented steel framebuilder who constructed bikes for Italian brands such as Colnago, Bianchi and Bottechia.
In fact, at one point in the late 70s and early 80s, Milano and his team were turning out more than 3,000 Pinarellos a year, many for a US market that was hungry for artisan steel frames. Milano also forged his self-titled brand, Milani.
‘Dario was an employee of the company and loved it there, learning all the time,’ says Wurdig. ‘He then became his own freelance contractor, creating steel frames for the likes of Pinarello and Carrera.’
Between 1990 and 1997, Pegoretti built frames for a who’s who of cycling, including Miguel Indurain, Marco Pantani, Stephen Roche and Mario Cipollini. It’s rumoured that Pegoretti created various steel Banesto-branded Pinarellos for Miguel Indurain, including the last steel bike to win the Tour de France in 1995.
‘That’s when the world of bike manufacturing started to change and it wasn’t long before carbon dominated the professional scene,’ says Wurdig. ‘Pinarello and Carrera no longer needed so many steel bikes. Dario realised things were changing and, like Gino, set about starting his own brand.’
His decision wasn’t purely financial. In 2014, Cyclist interviewed Pegoretti, asking him about making frames for legends of the sport. ‘When people ask me about the past, about building for the pros, I have to say it was not an interesting job,’ he replied.
‘I just received a piece of paper with the dimensions of the seat tube, top tube and head tube angle, and I built the frame.’
‘He wanted more creative freedom, to control what he was doing,’ adds Wurdig. ‘But it wasn’t as glamorous as people think; in fact, it was hard, really hard.’
The difficult years
During his time as a contractor for the big Italian brands, Pegoretti spent time living out of his car. He divorced his wife and lost his father-in-law too. Wurdig says those tough times continued when he launched his eponymous brand.
‘The first 15 years were so difficult he couldn’t pay Pietro a salary. Instead, he’d pay Pietro some money for individual pieces. Again, he’d spend time sleeping in his car. He also fought and won a battle against Hodgkin Lymphoma in 2007.
‘What’s sad is that his dream was to live in a nice house and work in a nice workshop in Verona. Finally, after 40 years of hard work, he earned a good income, could enjoy concerts and buy beautiful art… and then he died.’
For many people who became aware of Pegoretti’s bikes in the later years of his life, it was the daring and eclectic paintjobs that were the attraction. But it was during those tough years that Pegoretti built the brand’s reputation through his expertise with steel and his collaboration with the Italian company that supplied those steel tubes, Columbus. It’s a relationship that continues to this day.
‘We’ve enjoyed a strong connection with Antonio [Colombo, head of Columbus tubing] for a long time,’ says Wurdig. ‘This has resulted in them making tubing – the size, diameters – bespoke for us. Pietro and their technical team have spent a lot of time working together.’
‘And you use the cannello technique?’ Cyclist asks Pietricola, who is sitting quietly beside Wurdig, his English matching that of our Italian. Cannello is the Italian word for a blowtorch, as used in the traditional brazing method seen on a number of bespoke, handmade frames today. It’s a slow, laborious process, and Pietricola chuckles as Wurdig translates.
‘Pietro is smiling because cannello is a little bit in the past,’ she says. ‘We do still use it but rarely. What really cemented the reputation of Pegoretti is TIG welding as, before Dario started using it, most people used the lugged technique. Now, Pietro’s one of the best at this in the world – that’s what the people in London told me.’
Pegoretti’s early adoption of TIG welding and pushing Columbus to be relevant in a carbon age resulted in explicit and more subtle evolutions. Both are seen on the Big Leg Emma frame, named after a Frank Zappa song, which is designed to be super-stiff.
‘It includes oversized Columbus Life chainstays, and the down tube has had slots lasered into the sides and thin inserts brazed into place across the inside the tube to increase stiffness. Small steel plates are then brazed neatly over slots such that they are barely noticeable to the untrained eye.
We do what the fuck we want
Now, as then, much of this technological advancement is concealed by a paintjob that wouldn’t look out of place in the Louvre. When battling with cancer, Pegoretti introduced an option for his custom frames called Ciavete.
‘Roughly, it translates as “we do what the fuck we want”,’ Wurdig laughs. ‘The customer may say they would like a black base or some yellow in it, but that’s it. The rest is up to us.’
Not only does Ciavete ensure the originality of every design, but a surprise awaits every customer when they open the box: ‘Around 80% of our customers want Ciavete,’ says Wurdig. ‘During lockdown, this figure increased. Life was so boring that people wanted a surprise.’
This element of surprise is a common theme. Take the brand’s breakthrough moment. Not for Pegoretti did sales rise through WorldTour sponsorship. Instead, the company received a helping hand from a legendary comedian.
‘I think Robin Williams had eight Pegorettis,’ Wurdig says. ‘[American singer] Ben Harper is a big fan too. These high-profile customers certainly helped spread the word in America.’
In 2008, Williams’ love of Pegorettis saw him fly on his private jet from California to the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in the Oregon city of Portland, just to meet Dario.
‘The paintjob helped to catch people’s attention,’ says Wurdig. ‘But once the likes of Robin rode one of our road bikes, they really saw how beautiful they are.’
Pegoretti certainly captured the imagination of the American public, which Wurdig says is their biggest market. ‘We’ve always been an export-oriented brand. Often you don’t quite appreciate what’s on your doorstep and, historically, that has been the case in Italy.’
Pegoretti took this domestic snub to the extremes, and one New Year’s Day he wrote on his website that he’d no longer sell to Italians. ‘People were upset,’ says Wurdig, ‘but it made them keener to find out more about Pegoretti.’
That was Dario Pegoretti: artist, framebuilder and enfant terrible.
Photo: Juan Trujillo Andrades
Dario Pegoretti on…
…building the perfect bike
‘The perfect bike doesn’t exist in my opinion – it’s a kind of dream. It’s very important to know the customer and their plans for the bike, whether it’s going to be purely recreational, diehard racing or for riding gran fondos. Then you can decide what kind of tubeset to use for each specific customer.’
…the new generation of framebuilders
‘Ah, I love the new framebuilders. There was more than a decade where nobody got excited about framebuilding – from the beginning of the 1990s until 2005 – but now there is a great interest in it. I receive requests for apprenticeships every year. I receive so many emails from young people who want to build frames and need some information, and I love to share what I know.’
…the Pegoretti paintjobs
‘For me it’s just a joke – it’s a reflection of my dreams. People like it, but I don’t know why. For me it depends on the day I’m having – if I have a bad day I start from a black base colour and if I have a happy day I start from a yellow or white.’
Taken from Cyclist interview in 2014
Precious metal
Think of it as an investment…
The strongest markets for Pegoretti’s bikes have always been the English-speaking nations – Britain and the USA especially – along with a growing fanbase in Asia. Whichever part of the world you inhabit, the craftmanship and artistry of a Pegoretti frame doesn’t come cheap.
Take the flagship custom Columbus XCr stainless-steel Responsorium that retails at London’s CycleFit for £4,475. That’s for frame, fork and one solid colour. Want Ciavete paint work? That’ll be an extra £950.
‘You need a certain purchasing power but we attract all ages,’ says marketing manager Cristina Wurdig.
‘Many young people enjoy salaries we couldn’t dream of if they work in banking or Silicon Valley, though there was one rider in Verona who worked at McDonald’s and saved for six years.’