Velo City: Bicycle Culture and City Life

Pegoretti Luigino

Pegoretti Luigino

Dario Pegoretti is one of my all-time heroes, someone for whom I have a great amount of creative and technical respect. He is a true artist, and his eccentricities only add to the ambiguity of one of cycling’s most colorful characters.

Pegoretti Luigino

Gregory White is an extremely talented photographer from Toronto, and he emailed me today with some fantastic shots of his freshly built-up Luigino frame. There’s a story that goes along with it, which I’ll let Greg relate…

Pegoretti Luigino

“Years ago I fell in love with Dario Pegoretti’s work, especially the Luigino. At the time I was doing well financially, and I decided to treat myself. In March, 2007 I placed an order through La Bicicletta here in Toronto for a 55cm Luigino frameset.

Pegoretti Luigino

I was told it would take about 3-6 months to have the frame completed and delivered. I was happy the order was in and I was happy to wait. Shortly thereafter Dario was diagnosed with lymphoma and he went into treatment. He stopped building frames. I was saddened, but more that anything I wanted him to get better.

Pegoretti Luigino

Two years later my frame was completed and shipped from Caldonazzo to Toronto. I had just completed a very expensive home renovation (read: way over budget) and I couldn’t even begin to think about building this piece of art into a functional machine.

Pegoretti Luigino

The Luigino hung on my wall for two more years. Still broke after this time I decided enough was enough and if I didn’t make it happen, it would never happen.

Pegoretti Luigino

So for 6 months I saved. Every time I got paid for a photography job I put $100 into a Pegoretti savings account. Just recently I figured I had saved about enough and I went back to La Bicicletta and had them build her up with Campagnolo Athena, Record hubs and headset, classic Ambrosio wheels, 3T seatpost, and Cinelli bars and stem.

Pegoretti Luigino

There are only two bits on this bike that is not Italian – the vintage Time pedals, and the beautiful Arundel water bottle cages.

Pegoretti Luigino

She rides like an absolute dream. I have never in my life experienced a bike like this.”

Pegoretti Luigino

The Luigino is a custom order frame only, constructed from Columbus heat-treated Nivacrom EL-OS tubing, and is matched with a double layer-crowned fork. You can see more of Gregory’s photography on his website, and if you find his Luigino entrancing, have a read of The Spoken interview with Dario here.

Pegoretti Luigino
Pegoretti Luigino