Picchio Special Rigido 1980s Classic Road Bike

In the 20th century, Turino was quite the place for excellent frame builders. Many of whom made bikes for the biggest champions of their time and some of whom are rather unknown to the broader publics. Experts, however, get a certain glance to their eye when they hear the name of humble masters like Pelà, Paratella - or Picchio. Angelo Picchio first worked at 11 years old for Ernesto Francese in 1931. Later he worked for Benotto before he had to serve in the war. Afterwards he started building his own bikes and of course he did cycle a bit himself. Picchio is said to have ridden the Milan-Turino together with Fausto Coppi once.
He crafted many champions' bicycles, including the ones of the winners of the Tour De France, the Giro d'Italia and the World Championships. All his frames were built either by himself, Giuseppe Pelà or Francesco Trentin, who had been a team mechanic for the Torpado team.
His bikes were advanced designs with very typical details. He had very intriguing cutouts on the lugs of his models, which were inspired by old traditional Piemontese wood carvings from the late middle ages. Which is also kind of funny because Picchio means woodpecker in Italian, a wood shaping bird.
You often find olympic rings on his fork crowns and his name on the seat stay caps even on early frames. Picchio was indeed the first one who, together with Pelà, started to engrave details on the frame.
As we turn to our bike, we have to tell in advance that this exemplar is in fact one of Angelo Picchio's own bikes, made for the old man himself. A piece of cycling history.
The model is the so called Picchio Special Rigido; a variation of the famous Special model on which the Columbus SL tubes have special creases to enhance the rigidity and the cables are routed internally. The frame shows several typical nice details. The cutout lugs, the engraved fork crown and seat stay caps and the Pelà-style bottom bracket shell. What a breathtaking beauty!
As groupset there serves just the best of its time: The Campagnolo C-Record with Delta brakes.
This bike is definitely a collectible piece for someone who can cherish the exceptional piece that it is.