Gaulzetti Cicli

[jerk]

Craig is on the Right coast no?

Craig are you doing any racing at the moment if so how does it feel racing at the level you are in the domestic scene compared with what you have done before?

i have never raced at a high level here in the states. when i got back from europe, i stayed away from the bike for a while and recovered my sanity and my health. now, i'll do local races sometimes but i don't really commit to the lifestyle to compete at a high level and my head only lets me do things 100%. were i to race bikes again seriously, it would demand me to jump in head first and get on the program 100% and quite frankly i'm too old, too beat up and without the illusion that i'll one day be in the lead group at a protour event- i don't really have the inclination. so now i just ride and train a bit and am experienced enough and fat enough that i can fake it most of the time.

you'd need to ask justin about what it is like to race as a pro/cat1 versus what it is like to race in europe at that high level. to me- it's playing in the nfl versus high school. one is a real job- one is a hobby with a dangle of hope for some that it could become a real job someday.
thanks for the question!

[jerk]

in terms of model, all my bikes handle and ride the same. pick the one you like the look of. if you give justin more detailed position data- i can draft up which geometry would work best- but in general for most clients i recommend the corsa.

[jerk]

Craig - I'm stoked that you are well, so stoked! that's great. you have the energy it takes to make a bike brand "float." there are allot of people from your neck of the woods on this thread, but for those of us who are not from the Left Coast give us just a quick over view of the line for clarity, huh? what are all you current models, what are they made of, where are they made & by who? I for one am glad you are flying the flag of the fine USA aluminum road racing bike. you have what, welded Al, CF, & lugged steel now, right? {see, fill me in} what is next, Ti? TIG'ed spirit? thanks, man - rock on - Garro.

hey garro- thanks dood!

my current models are:

the corsa which is an aluminum road bike with an isp or i'll do it without. it comes in a bunch of sizes and is available sloping or non. these things are for the most part made in colorado by pm fabrications and most of 'em are painted by circle a in providence.

the issimo which is a lugged steel bike. it's made by circle a, although i am brazing one myself for a pal...these are also painted by circle a in rhode island.

the carbonio is made by the only man in the world who can do it- nic crumpton deep in kinky friedman country. he does the clear finish work on these things- which going forward is probably all we'll offer. the bike is really meant to be a lighter corsa with no compormises in terms of stiffness and ride- may as well save the weight of the paint- (otherwise, save the money and buy a corsa)

what's next? stay tuned!!! you'll hear it here or on justin's blog first!

craig

[AntLockyer]

Craig thanks for the reply man. you nailed what I was asking. also thanks for saying the corsa is available without the slope. that's not something I'd heard before and would influence my decision to buy for sure.

[steve garro]

Craig is on the Right coast no?

my window faces Mexico! - Garro.

[jerk]

my window faces Mexico! - Garro.

you're making my next mountain bike man.

[Archibald]

Craig - This is coming a bit out of left field. Given that you use contract builders to produce your bikes & given the range of your industry experience, do you think there is room in the biz' for a dedicated small unit contract build house in the US along the lines of Match model but able to work in the full range of materials and joining methods? I know it's a loaded question given that there are a few builders that take in contract work, some of which you use, but I'm really curious to know your take on a one-stop shopping type contract build scenario.

[DCT]

you're making my next mountain bike man.

both of you guys rule imho.

[nahtnoj]

What is the division of work between you and Justin? If someone wants some custom tweaks, are you the guy who makes the changes? How many hours a week does Craig Gaulzetti put into Gaulzetti Cicli?

[Chooey]

craig, when you describe how a race bike should ride, the bulb always lights up! to me, your biggest asset is that you know racing!

[jerk]

Archi-
This is a really big question so apologies in advance for the long winded answer. With my experience in traditional brick and mortar bicycle retail and the work I have done with my own brand, I think big changes are coming to the way in which people purchase bicycles. To a certain extent, the small frame builders are ahead of the curve when it comes to a modern distribution model. They're selling direct to the end consumer, not holding inventory and and producing based on actual orders rather than projections. The vast majority of specialty retail product sold begins life as an inquiry on the internet and the big bike suppliers have yet to find a way to successfully navigate the model. This is in no small part due to the fact that their balls are firmly squeezed in the hands of stupid, backward, stagnant retail dinosaurs who run the big bike shops. These guys in general don't like informed customers, don't understand the way modern information is permeated and have no vision for distribution of their goods and services beyond people walking into the shop and saying "i need a bike".

the guy or gal who buys a really high-end bike is never going to be a huge profit center for a large well run brick and mortar bicycle shop. They tend to be needy, opinionated, knowledgable and price conscious to a point that at best a bike shop can break even selling the expensive fancy stuff..... somehow, these same folks behave differently when dealing directly with a small builder. a small builder has a monopoly on his product. you can't go buy a gaulzetti or an anvil journeyman someplace else cheaper. the client also ends up dealing directly with someone who by definition is informed and an expert on his product.

this works well for everyone if the small bike builder is good at everything; design, sales, marketing, administration not to mention fabrication. most suck at one if not most of these things. personally, i see a huge opportunity for a real contract build house that is efficient, competent, timely and able to work with all the materials and methods of modern frame construction. the inability of the italian job shops to transition from steel to aluminum to carbon ultimately spelled the death of italian bicycle manufacturing and with it was lost alot of the innovations and attention to detail in regards to geometry. the big chinese manufacturers have open molds that are generally too cheap to overlook and the development of unique or one off really special bikes is just not in the cards for even the little bike brands anymore.

what you mention is a project someone should take on. i would support it wholeheartedly.

thanks!
craig

[jerk]

i do all the design work and even though i have a bunch of stock designs on hand, every individual client's bike is drafted independently because i generally use the contact points, build and style of the rider and the athlete's style to draft the bike. the more information i get the better. i'm pretty good at filtering out the trivial so the more information the client provides to me and justin the better. justin handles the sales and logistics. it'd be tough for me to come up with how many hours i spend on gaulzetti cicli. it varies week to week. it certainly isn't a full time gig in a formal sense, but i'd guess it's 15 hours a week or so.
thanks!
c

[Ryun]

hey garro- thanks dood!

my current models are:

the corsa which is an aluminum road bike with an isp or i'll do it without. it comes in a bunch of sizes and is available sloping or non. these things are for the most part made in colorado by pm fabrications and most of 'em are painted by circle a in providence.

the issimo which is a lugged steel bike. it's made by circle a, although i am brazing one myself for a pal...these are also painted by circle a in rhode island.

the carbonio is made by the only man in the world who can do it- nic crumpton deep in kinky friedman country. he does the clear finish work on these things- which going forward is probably all we'll offer. the bike is really meant to be a lighter corsa with no compormises in terms of stiffness and ride- may as well save the weight of the paint- (otherwise, save the money and buy a corsa)

what's next? stay tuned!!! you'll hear it here or on justin's blog first!

craig

So no more titanium? How many of those were done?

[anthonymaietta]

Archi-
This is a really big question so apologies in advance for the long winded answer. With my experience in traditional brick and mortar bicycle retail and the work I have done with my own brand, I think big changes are coming to the way in which people purchase bicycles. To a certain extent, the small frame builders are ahead of the curve when it comes to a modern distribution model. They're selling direct to the end consumer, not holding inventory and and producing based on actual orders rather than projections. The vast majority of specialty retail product sold begins life as an inquiry on the internet and the big bike suppliers have yet to find a way to successfully navigate the model. This is in no small part due to the fact that their balls are firmly squeezed in the hands of stupid, backward, stagnant retail dinosaurs who run the big bike shops. These guys in general don't like informed customers, don't understand the way modern information is permeated and have no vision for distribution of their goods and services beyond people walking into the shop and saying "i need a bike".

the guy or gal who buys a really high-end bike is never going to be a huge profit center for a large well run brick and mortar bicycle shop. They tend to be needy, opinionated, knowledgable and price conscious to a point that at best a bike shop can break even selling the expensive fancy stuff..... somehow, these same folks behave differently when dealing directly with a small builder. a small builder has a monopoly on his product. you can't go buy a gaulzetti or an anvil journeyman someplace else cheaper. the client also ends up dealing directly with someone who by definition is informed and an expert on his product.

this works well for everyone if the small bike builder is good at everything; design, sales, marketing, administration not to mention fabrication. most suck at one if not most of these things. personally, i see a huge opportunity for a real contract build house that is efficient, competent, timely and able to work with all the materials and methods of modern frame construction. the inability of the italian job shops to transition from steel to aluminum to carbon ultimately spelled the death of italian bicycle manufacturing and with it was lost alot of the innovations and attention to detail in regards to geometry. the big chinese manufacturers have open molds that are generally too cheap to overlook and the development of unique or one off really special bikes is just not in the cards for even the little bike brands anymore.

what you mention is a project someone should take on. i would support it wholeheartedly.

thanks!
craig

Thank you for this post. It was incredibly well written.

[zank]

Yo Craig, you import some of the more obscure but most well-designed parts into the US. PMP comes to mind right away. You've been ahead of the curve on stuff like this. Is there any synergy between Gaulzetti Cicli and the import/distribution business? Are they/ can they feed off each other and can we expect to see you being in other lines that might do well here in the US but are currently challenging or impossible to get? Is this a selling point for the bikes too?

[jerk]

So no more titanium? How many of those were done?

there are probably a half dozen out there and they are nice bikes. there were a number of reasons why i'm holding off on producing titanium frames right now. i need all my bikes to be uncategorically best in class and better than anything else available anywhere. the ti bikes are great bikes- but were they better than what tyler and the guys at IF are doing with their new factory lightweight? no- they were nice bikes with really nice geometry- i only want to make superior bikes with really nice geometry. the line-up as it now stands does that.


thanks!
craig

[jerk]

Yo Craig, you import some of the more obscure but most well-designed parts into the US. PMP comes to mind right away. You've been ahead of the curve on stuff like this. Is there any synergy between Gaulzetti Cicli and the import/distribution business? Are they/ can they feed off each other and can we expect to see you being in other lines that might do well here in the US but are currently challenging or impossible to get? Is this a selling point for the bikes too?

most of my bikes don't even use seatposts! but yeah, i guess so. i'm always on the look-out for neat new stuff that makes sense. as i've alluded to, i have an unnatural fetish towards purpose built products that are designed and built for function above all other concerns especially commodity. my current occupation leaves me a bit strapped for time to pursue the import/distribution business as much as i'd like- but i can tell you that i would love to do more work with pmp in the future regarding components for my frames and for other frame builders. things that spring to mind are seat post toppers for isps, some sort of headset/fork system that'll allow us to finally do away with stupid expander plugs and star-fangled nuts. and a proprietary drop-out for aluminum race bikes.

i'm always on the look out for cool wheels too. i've often said, i'd rather have a $4000 set of wheels on a $400 frame that fits than a $400 set of wheels on a $4000 frame that fits.
thanks zank!
c

[zank]

Hey, just another prop. I've always admired your outlook and suggestions on wheels. I think your views, based on years of some of the hardest, most cut-throat racing in the world, speaks volumes to what actually works vs what manufacturers want us to believe works. The only thing they can often point to is weight. Maybe that's what matters to guys riding 15-18 mph where aero doesn't matter as much. But I view your suggestions as what guys who are racing, railing corner, and getting their nose out in the wind should be on.

Anyway, that's all. Just some old-fashioned laying it on thick for ya.

[giordana93]

craig,
first, like everyone else, I want to praise your awesome prose--the eloquence is also belied by this sense of immediacy, like its just coming right off the cuff, but perfectly edited already--do you have to spend much time editing or can you really craft those perfect sentences so quickly? I also appreciate the Frankfurt School references and ethos (which remind me of earlier, better days in academia as a grad student and first years on the job when humanities were almost holding their own against the tide)

anyway, back to the bikes--you obviously have a sense of what needs to be going on across the size ranges, and particularly in the bigger sizes, but I'm interested in the design/fabrication aspects for the smaller sizes. I've got a goofy, all torso body that means I've always ridden smallish frames (52-53 c-c). in the era of steel only and even early aluminum (but NOT the Klein/C-Dale genus), my bikes were stiff enough and comfy too. Of late, I've been struck by how crappy these huge down-tubed bikes ride in my sizes --don't know if it's just too much stiffness or other "shrunken geometry" things going on. admittedly have not had the funds to have experimented that much, but still. so long story short, I know that you have custom drawn tubing, but do they or any other aspect of the design change at the smaller end of the sizes, and from a strictly philosophical stand point, what needs to be done re: stiffness and geometry to maintain that balance that makes the bike disappear --do you think a race bike can be too stiff? (loaded question you can ignore, but I was interested in how your description of a 'Dale in the larger size echoed my experience on a 53 from the early 90s: liked the weight of the frame but it really rode like crap for the most part)

finally, an appeal everyone will chime in on: we want a new Jerk report. everyone send subscription money to pucci

[nahtnoj]

i do all the design work and even though i have a bunch of stock designs on hand, every individual client's bike is drafted independently because i generally use the contact points, build and style of the rider and the athlete's style to draft the bike. the more information i get the better. i'm pretty good at filtering out the trivial so the more information the client provides to me and justin the better. justin handles the sales and logistics. it'd be tough for me to come up with how many hours i spend on gaulzetti cicli. it varies week to week. it certainly isn't a full time gig in a formal sense, but i'd guess it's 15 hours a week or so.
thanks!
c

Thank you. This has been an amazing thread - one of the best reads in Smoked Out.