One of my favorite motorcycle blogs, The Vintagent, writes an irregular post titled ‘How You Find Them’, dedicated to those miraculous barnyard finds that inevitably turn into the stuff of legends. This is the bicycle equivalent: a well-loved circa-1978 rosso corsa Sannino Pista. A restorer’s dream, or maintain the aged patina like an agriculturally reliable Alfa Romeo from the same era.
As far as bikes from this era go, it’s in a ‘well loved’ condition, but this is where we can draw a similarity to wines; bikes like this actually do get better with age. You could restore it, a thousand times, but as the saying goes: it’s only original once. This would have been one of Sannino’s first frames. Mauro Sannino’s workshop was based near the Turin velodrome, and they produced frames of an exceptional quality, even providing for the national junior teams of Poland and Russia. This particular frame was built for a rider named Igor Tempo, and it’s proof that this build is complete from the day it rolled out of the shop: his name is even painted on the Nisi tubular rims. The rest of the spec sheet reads like a typical high-end Italian racer: Gipiemme cranks, Campagnolo sprocket, pedals and bottom bracket, 3TTT bars, pantographed stem and those magnificent Fratelli Brivio hubs.
The last I looked, this Sannino was for sale. The owner is an Etsy store-holder named Jim Upcycling, whose sideline is belts made from bicycle tires. There’s more detail shots on his flickr set.
