Dario Pegoretti: [about 4 years ago] at the last urban outpost near the northern end of the San Gabriel River Trail I stopped in at Stan’s Bicycle Shop in Monrovia to buy an extra water bottle for the ride home and discovered the work of Dario Pegoretti.

Dario Pegoretti (born 1957) is an Italian framebuilder based in Caldonazzo, outside the town of Trento, in the Dolomites, about 62 miles northwest of Venice. The frames are impeccably constructed by Dario, a dedicated craftsman, but painted and decorated by the irreverent sensibilities of a consummate artist.

In some respects, Dario’s frames can be compared to the work of John Slawta of LandShark. Some of his work was on display at Interbike in the Italian Pavilion. Visit the Peg[o]ReTti website to see more stuff.

Also worth visiting is a blog post [above category] about a new set of frames being produced by the frame-builder.  [above category] also features a flickr set of Pegoretti frame details {very cool stuff}.

As they say: Steel is steel Real.

It’s only within the race community that steel has lost favor and simply because of weight considerations. I think everyone still loves the handling characteristics of steel. Without a doubt, steel frames will make a BIG comeback. Can you see it: races that only allow steel frames[?] or weight limits {no bikes under 18 lbs} [?] That can put steel back on the pavé. If you’re self-sponsored {i.e., you pay for your own stuff, like the majority of [e]raser boyz & grrrrlz} carbon is too fragile. Over the last 5 years, I’ve seen more broken frames than the previous 30 – and not just from crashes.