Steel Bikes - Tommasini Tecno 1997

"Courtesy Bicyclist Magazine, Petersen Publishing Company" and feaured in the July 1997 issue

By Joe Lindsey
Photo by Kevin Wing

Italians are revered for everything from the paint jobs on church ceilings to creating food you can suck like a straw, so it's only natural that the people renowned for art be the ones to take mere steel and transform it into the physical representation of an ideal. Since a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci's first drew a primitive forerunner of the bicycle in 1493, Italy has been the geographic and spiritual heart of the sport. It's home to the Madonna del Ghisallo, the patron saint of cyclists, and consistently produces some of the best blends of technology and art the framebuilding world can offer. It's no wonder Italian frames have enjoyed a small resurgence in popularity-a miniature renaissance, if you will.

Ornate chromed lugs and a real head tube badge are indicators of Tommasini's old-world stylings.

The Tommasini Tecno represents all that's good about state-of-the-art Italian steel. For starters, the Columbus EL-OS tubeset used is the same set of pipes that many European racers ride, and the lugged construction made our 57-centimeter test frame weigh in at a respectable 4 pounds even. While the weight isn't anything fantastic, you've missed the point if you've discounted the frame based on a Jenny Craig-like obsession with ounces. Italian steel is not about weight, it's about ride. And ride quality is one thing the Tecno possesses to an exceptional degree.

The Tommasini's demeanor has all the eagerness of a bike courier making a double-rush delivery, minus the caffeine and bad traffic habits. The Tecno is ready to ride, but only if you point the way. The bike demonstrated a willingness to heel into the nastiest corners possible but showed none of the chattery, busy ride characteristics of many bikes. Stability and control during out-of-the-saddle efforts were so good I measured the handlebar one day to see if it was a 44-centimeter-wide version rather than my usual 40. My "proving ground" test loop features some nasty stuff such as steep grades, variable road surfaces (including the odd mud slide) and tight corners-a testing ground that exposes a bike's weak spots in spades. Try as I might, I couldn't get the Tecno to slip up.

The only, single, minute smidgen of a problem with the Tecno is that it costs $1450 for the frame and fork only. Now, while we've reviewed pricier framesets, there has always been a definable, technical excuse for the added cost. Litespeed's Vortex, for example, is 6Al/4V titanium-very expensive and harder to work with than preschoolers on sugar highs. And no one offers a Vortex competitor for less than half the price of the Litespeed. But you can find EL-OS frames for as low as $700. So why should you pay more for the Tecno? Soul.

Ask any framebuilder what makes a good frame, and he'll tell you that it's all in the welds or the brazing, not the pipes. Basically, not all Columbus EL-OS frames (or any other tubesets, for that matter) are created equal. Top-drawer frames seem to share the characteristic of exceptionally balanced ride quality. The reason for this is because extra care is paid during the brazing phase to ensure that the frame tubes are properly aligned. Think of it like a fine string instrument: If the strings are tuned correctly, the instrument will produce perfect tonalities, but if the strings aren't tensioned correctly, dissonance is created. In the same vein, think of the individual tubes as the strings and the brazing and build quality as tuning. If the tubes are properly aligned and joined during the build, the frame is much more in harmony with itself than if it must be tweaked into alignment afterward. At the risk of sounding earthy, the holistic approach of making the frame more than the sum of its parts-by paying attention to those parts during construction-is what sets frames such as the Tecno apart.

I know there are certain people who understand my point, and those who don't. That's okay. If after reading this you're still not convinced, you may never be. But for those of us whose definition of a great bike doesn't include super titanthermomatrixalistic tubing and 2.4-pound frame weights, the Tecno represents the blend of form and function that seems to be at the heart of the Italian framebuilding ideal and, dare I say, at the heart of cycling.