Pinarello

The Pinarello Bicycle Shop was founded in Treviso Italy, by Giovanni Pinarello in 1952, the shop offered bicycle maintenance, repair and frame building.

1950s – 1960s
Giovanni Pinarello was a professional cyclist who raced on the circuit for seven years starting his career in 1947. His few successes were highlighted in finishing a difficult Giro d’Italia in 1951 and earning the Maglia Nera; i.e. the jersey awarded to the last finishing rider.
Following his pro racing career, Giovanni started producing frames which were intended for the competitive racer. Upon opening the Pinarello Treviso Bicycle shop, the local business was a steady success and business increased as the quality of the work spread by word of mouth and reputation. Production was very low key and the numbers were very few with the first decades only producing a few thousand frames. During The 1960s the production volume was increased as the knowledge of the brand increased locally and across the region and country slowly.

The 1970s
The 1970’s saw some future names builders and master craftsman provide work for Pinarello. These were some very key and later to be very well-known legendary frame builders who would produce frames for Giovanni Pinarello, their names such as Galmozzi, Cinelli and De Rosa as well as Gino Milani and ultimately Dario Pegoretti.
Individual local pro riders were the first initial banner carriers for the brand, and as riders started to identify Pinarello as an item, soon early team interest started. In the 1970s this trend continued until a few Italian Teams were knowledgeable about the frame or had racers using them. Jolly-Ceramica was one of the first big name teams to ride Pinarello in 1975.
The 1975 Giro d’Italia victory by Fausto Bertoglio would be the first huge initial success with a national tour championship win, helping the name brand of Pinarello to spread further within Italy. By the late 1970s Jolly and then Gis-Jolly Teams were featuring Pinarello. Those years the market was very strong in Italy, and Spain began to see the first frames regionally as well. European exposure grew and strengthened and expanded individual frame sales began in Canada and the United States. The Italian pro squad Metauro Mobili would be the bridge team from the late ‘70s and into the early 1980s.

The 1980s
With the 1981 Giro d’italia championship title thanks to Giovanni Battaglin, the brand was having a break out period. In 1983 through Campagnolo the Spanish Reynolds Team contracted Pinarello became a strong Vuelta and Tour de France participant. On the home front in Italy the Metauro Mobili 1982 -1984 squad would morph into the 1985 Vini Recordi -Pinarello team.
Sales in North American were booming between 1978 and 1982 at least in the serious but growing racing amateur market. GITA had been created as an importer from Italy and sales grew and were pushed into the strong and growing cycling retail market. In the United States such growing interest in cycling and in individual and club racing produced the first teams of note. The Denver Colorado area of Columbine had a very strong club membership and it would be the Columbine Cycling Club to first developed a strong brand relationship and sourced Pinarello Treviso SL frames for its elite club team in 1981. As the team really forged its identity in 1982 and 83, their riders started impacting the growing Coors Classic and stage results set the program up with increased local and area national class racers. This exposure further promoted increasing brand awareness and Pinarello frame sales grew as new riders and racing cyclists drove the retail market.
In 1984 the stage was set for a huge break-through for Pinarello with a competitive highlight and a global marketing epiphany as the Los Angeles Olympic Games provided a perfect stage. The relationship with Alexi Grewal/ American Savings team and Pinarello had begun in 1982, and would fundamentally change the Pinarello brand forever Grewal was the perfect mystery man for the brand, literally emerging from nowhere to qualify for the US National Team in a fiery performance in the Tour of the Moon race course which hosted the US Olympic trials road race. Alexi would win that race against much stronger teams with only two young fledgling riders. He actually dismounting and walking across the finish line. The stunning win would allow him to earn a position on the US national road team and race in Mission Viejo California as a domestique.
Grewal and his 1984 American Savings – Dia Compe team would be racing the sport’s first aero frame and bicycle in the revolutionary Pinarello Montello SLX. The new internally routed brake cables and flashy bridgeless bottom bracket and aero brake levers by Dia Compe made the bike literally space age and instead of traditional components the team sourced Suntour Superbe Pro. Alexi Grewal would ride the race of his life that July 2 1984 in Mission Viejo California after initially declining to race in flat California, and when he escaped in a two man break away with a Canadian rider he was pedaling his way to legend. The first American Olympic Gold medal in cycling was the result and his steed Pinarello was catapulted to instant cycling lore and myth. Orders for the Gold Medal bike and subsequent sales literally just blew up the system and demand sky rocketed globally. Pinarello already hot, was now into a category beyond compare with both models: the Treviso SL and Montello SLX frames were impossible to keep in stock. There was a minimum of three months waiting time, and in most cases longer as every rider wanted one and every racer had to get one.