Mar 28, 2006
The Pirana
Cyclingnews’ Italia Bici mini site is up and it offers some very cool insights into some Italian bike companies. The most stunning feature is the Pirana bike that was designed and built for Roberto Visentini who won the Giro D’Italia that year. Visentini who was a climber had to contend with powerful passista Francesco Moser and the dominating Bernard Hinault. Battaglin came up with a radical design that helped shave 3 second per kilometer. The radicallly bubbled front wheel was not the only oddity. The bike was one of the first carbon fibre monocoques created. Carbon development was still in it’s infancy for bikes, so the monocoque did not have the same weight savings and was very expensive.
Unfortunately, the Pirana was never pedalled in anger since the race jury deemed that Visentini would have an unfair advantage, so they had to nix the bike.
The article says that both the frame and fork are carbon, but that fork looks like a cromoly Columbus fork to me. Carbon doesn’t usually have a chrome finish. Plus a thin carbon fork circa 1985 would act much like a wet noodle.