Going to Bergamo to collect the frame directly from the hands of the maker himself was perhaps one of the smartest moves I could do. I must thank Giacomo for this, I was a little doubtful about the long ride. I could have received the frame via courier for much less money that what we spent in this trip, but he told me right away "we got to meet this man and see the place". That was exactly what the little voice in my head was telling me since the first time I began looking in the web for infos about frame builders and stumbled upon Giovanni Pelizzoli interviews. I had to meet the man and see the place.
Nothing tells you you've reached the spot if you don't notice a 4 tandem bicycle lying outside the door together with a couple abandoned frames. It's a sort of warehouse with a red door. When you open it and your eyes adjust to the changement of light oh boy...oh, oh boy. It's time to smile with your eyes and feel that same funny feeling back then, when your dad would take you to the fun fair to shoot the gun and drive the bumper cars. Your head says "I don't want to leave this place, at least until I've explored every single square meter and learned what every single one of these machines does. I want to learn, I want to work here."
Giovanni Pelizzoli is the kind of person that will make you feel at home after a few seconds. Even if you don't know him he'll be talking at you about anything in such a relaxed way that you' won't be able to avoid thinking that you met him the day before. He smiles at us, a quick shake of hands and he's already got a frame in his hands explaining who he made it for and why. Proud of his work (and who could move any objection to that...) and full of life. He's 70 years old, has defeated cancer and has the energy and the enthusiasm of a kid. When Giovanni leaves for a half an hour Alessandro, the young man behind the launch of the Pelizzoli website that opened the way to a whole new generation of clients as ourselves with fixed gear bikes, amuses us with stories of Giovanni, telling us how unpredictable he can be and how jealous he is of his frame building techniques to the point he quits working if you stare too much at him while he's welding. That's because he comes from a time when frame builders were few and each had their own secrets when building a frame. Preserving one's own technique meant the survival in the market and Giovanni continues with that mentality. Like a magician he won't tell you his tricks...
While Giovanni is away for a while Alessandro is extremely kind in offering himself with great kindness to the dozens of questions we throw at him. He clears out several doubts we had about frames and about bicycles and makes us feel at ease while behind us a very careful collaborator of Pelizzoli thoroughly examines for the last time my frame searching for imperfections in the paint.
Alessandro is also responsible for another wonderful reality here in Bergamo that some of you might already know about if you're into vintage bikes and professional renovation of old frames, not to talk about collectors items. In association with a friend of his they launched Eroica Cicli, a wonderful initiative that sells online beautiful vintage bicycles. I won't even go into details, I'll just tell you that we've been in their "headquarters" and it was like stepping into a secret vault where the treasures are...Luckily our pockets were almost empty because had we stepped inside loaded with money, one thing is sure: the money gone we would have left with all that money could buy...
Finally Giovanni returns and I have the chance to interview him. Something I had been thinking for quite some time. I had read so much about him but all the questions were always very dull and predictable. I knew the story about how he got into bikes at 14 years old, about his father, "Il Ciocc" and about Claudio Corti and Gianni Bugno...I wanted to know something about the man. So, inspired by legendary Bernard Pivot and his questionnaire created for Buillon de Culture and Apostrophe, here's my Pelizzoli interview, made while sitting face to face with Giovanni, surrounded by frames:
What is your favourite word?
GP: Love
What is your least favourite word?
GP: dishonest
What is your favourite colour?
GP: Silver
What is your least favourite colour?
GP: Purple
What profession other than yours would have liked to attempt?
GP: I would have to answer insulating, something I used to do as a kid before beginning to build frames. It really gave me that methodology and attention to details, and taking all measures and planning everything before getting started. Something that really turned out to be extremely useful when I switched to frame building. You would plan and sketch on paper first, then see your plan come to life and become something real. If I hadn't fallen in love with bicycles, I would have certainly continued in that business.
What profession would you never want to attempt?
GP: Working in a mine or in a foundry
What is your favorite curse word?
GP: Though it certainly is a curse word it's not that offensive. It's in dialect: "figù". Figù is a sort of funny but not offensive way of identifying a guy as some kind of a playboy, but we use it with people we know in a very friendly way. When I call someone at Columbus or Guerciotti I tell them "hi figù!". In the near future I would like to produce something and call it like that.
Who was the cyclist you had the chance to know personally that impressed you the most?
GP: I would have to answer Claudio Corti, who brought a bike of the brand I used to have at the time, Ciocc, to winning a world championship in Venezuela. But I have also a good relationship with Gianni Bugno for whom I made bikes too, as well as with the French cyclist Richard Virenque. I would drive him around with the Team Polti car and he would always tell me "give gas! go go go!" There's so many memories I have..Savoldelli who won the Giro d'Italia, Celestino...I could go on for quite a while. I have wonderful memories also of women cyclists like Fabiana Luperini who won 5 Giro d'Italia and 3 Tour de France or Alessandra Cappellotto who was the first woman to win a world championship in Italy with one of my bikes.
What opinion do you have about this explosion of the fixed gear bicycle culture?
GP: I feel that who builds these bikes today aren't real riders. They don't know what real cycling is. Going downhill without brakes to me is total recklessness. But from what I know it's something that non-professional riders do. The movement on the bike is so different...I call them reckless, though they are certainly quite skilled reckless guys (editor's note: he points at Alessandro). One of the problems I see is in the quality of the bikes. Outside Italy people into fixed gears pay great attention at the quality of the frame, the quality of the steel, if it's Columbus or something else, the components...in Italy it seems to me that everyone interested in a fixed gear bike wants to spend 500 euros and have a complete, good bike in their hands. That's impossible. And if you want to spend 500 euros and are happy to ride a frame that can be nothing but built with water pipes, well I think that's completely insane. In any case, it's a world apart because real cyclists don't go around with a fixed gear bike.
Therefore it's a legend or a myth the story about professional cyclists training in the first couple of months of the season with fixed gears?
GP: It used to be like that! Today there's this new figure, the personal trainer. I hope they won't get offended but to me they represent the death of the cyclist. The real champion, the real talent, knows how to listen to his own body. He understands where the limit is and acts just like a fruit plant, that gives fruit in the right season and takes a rest when it's the right time. A cyclist must have the time to recharge the batteries. When the season ends in September, he must rest at least until January before getting back on the bike. What I have just said is deemed like prehistoric by these so called personal trainers with their computers and their numbers. They think they know how to put a cyclist on a bike uniquely on the basis of what their computers tell them. I believe there are very few people in the world who know how to find the right position of a cyclist on a frame. It's not just numbers, those are necessary of course, it's a question of sensibility too, of watching the cyclist on the bike and understanding how he sits on the saddle and how he feels comfortable on it. Balancing a rider isn't a question of numbers, it's mainly a question of facts. In my opinion what these personal trainers do is simply squeeze cyclists like lemons until they are totally wasted. And then they throw them away.
The sound you love the most?
GP: The sound of silence.
The sound you hate the most?
GP: When there's a racket or chaos. Even though I'm a very loud and happy person I've begun to appreciate silence. I can't even go to the stadium anymore, or go where there's loads of people. I appreciate when I'm over here on my own welding frames, even though I love my collaborators, especially a guy called Alessandro (editor's note: he says that winking). I'm happy like that. I believe I'll die welding one day.
What turns you on?
GP: Other people's happiness
What turns you off?
GP: Lies
If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
GP: I'd like him to tell me "well done Ciocc, all of that bullshit you did had its own sense in the end"
Thank you Giovanni, thank you Alessandro. The best trips are those that end with the desire to go back. And we certainly will go back.
USEFUL LINKS:
Pelizzoli World
Via Enrico Fermi 24035 Curn (BG) Italy
Eroica Cicli
email: info@eroicacicli.com
Fixed Bergamo
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