Dearest Vincenzo:
I finally brought AnimA to take a tour of Naples and make her taste the scent of the sea on the wonderful and unfortunately only bike path there is.
We have crossed some of the most beautiful areas of the city like San Martino and Piazza Plebiscito.
Driving sensations are truly phenomenal; in the first place, I confirm the feeling of feeling at one with the bike, it has a powerful braking that saved me from a collision due to people who open doors suddenly or kids who jump into the street without looking.
Pedaling is damn good enough to make me gain 6 km / h compared to my optimal performance with the form before the illness and the previous bike.
It is simply a beast!
I do not find words to describe how happy it is to be with her.
Your frame (which has already received praise from the mechanic who enabled me to lock the fork, which spoke these words "high level") is very comfortable, in combination with the dinghy you put me in carbon it absorbs the vibrations like not even my totally carbon frame did.
It is precise, as I do a minimum movement of the body it follows the direction that I give it.
It is aerodynamic in fact as already said buying speed with a unique ease.
In short, everything constitutes the perfect companion !
I could use another ten thousand words but I wouldn't be able to catalog the countless emotions that your commitment and your passion are giving me.
It is little but I can only say Thank you!
One last thing: the mechanic asked me "why the steel"?
I replied: because compared to Carbon I will never have to worry about splitting and compared to aluminum I find it extremely more comfortable and I will not have to stay there to see that the material loses its properties over time.
He smiled at me and did not speak, he is a Giant dealer and he has aluminum mtb.
I tell you, he too regrets steel!
With love and esteem
Antonio
and now our three usual questions:
How did you get to know Vincenzo Forgione and his frames, and what made you make a custom frame?
I met Vincenzo looking on the Internet: at the time I had a 27.5 mtb in carbon and I was fine, but the thing that worried me was the chassis, I always had the obsession that it could break, understanding who takes it off later about two years (the time of the guarantee of 90% of these frames). I had promised myself that if it were broken I would never go back to carbon, no matter how attractive in form, graphics and technical data. Having chosen the steel after having examined various options and seeing that there are no more mtb on the market made of this material, I looked for a frame maker in my region and discovered Vincenzo; I was impressed by his art in making beautiful welds, his essays on the most requested subjects and the cheap price compared to that of other frame makers and / or semi-artisan brands.
Looking at the pictures of the frames he made for other people, I began to want a bike made specifically for me. Unfortunately things do not always go as one designs them; one day I found the cellar door wide open and the bike gone. This event as well as painful, forced me to accelerate the times and above all to take into account also the purchase of the components in addition to the frame.
So I contacted Vincenzo and went to see him in Gesualdo; immediately showed friendliness, sympathy and above all passion for bicycles that oozes from all the pores. He carefully took my anthropometric measurements and described the use I made of the bike. For a series of personal health problems I had to suspend the project, I was correct and I told him. I kept in touch thanks to his great sensitivity and for this reason I promised him that I would address him as soon as I was better.
Months later, here I am, very happy to have found something else besides a professional to commission a job.
What do you think of your frame?
I think it went beyond all my wildest expectations both for aesthetic standards and above all for the sensations it transmits and I think that it is not a product, but a creature conceived with passion and can be deduced from the large and small details with which was conceived but above all by the immense care poured into creation.
What are the distinctive features of your Forgione frame?
The precision and sense of security, lightness and comfort it offers. Specifically, the internal cable routing that I have been very pleased with I like so much as the ability to combine tradition and modernity given by geometries, shapes and technical features such as the conical head tube and the predisposition for the through pin. Vincenzo is very sincere and always says what he thinks, this helped me a lot in pondering my choices and to undermine some of my convictions without renouncing to the features essential for me described above.
Have you already mounted your bike?
Yes, fortunately I was able to count on Vincenzo, who even made me find all the protections on the frame already complete: since I no longer had the components of my MTB to be poured onto the new frame, I was in difficulty in a such a boundless world for an inexperienced person like me, while trying to inform myself on the network. I should have been looking for another person who should have helped me find the pieces and put them together. He guided me, patiently explained and I gave him carte blanche, sure he would do the best job based on my personal needs and he did. I can say with certainty that it was damn worth the pain and in the end I found myself a bicycle well above the one I had, with an honest budget and quickly for a job of this type, but more importantly PERFECT because designed for me. What impression did you have from using the assembled bike? It's hard to put into words because it's a subjective feeling. I tried the bike in the amazing surroundings of Gesualdo surrounded by nature, on a mixed asphalt / dirt path not too demanding, a perfect way to put it to the test with my driving style. The bike is like "disappearing" meaning I don't feel a separation between me and the vehicle, this is probably because it is made to measure, the frame / bike puts the body at ease and therefore you have the wonderful feeling of being immediately familiar with the medium with a surprising naturalness. Romantically I can say that it becomes a whole thing that I have never experienced with the previous bike that was in standard size M. The tricks like the reduced steering width, the assembly of a complete group, the choice of excellent hubs and wheels and the use of flat pedals equipped with pins, make the bike extremely precise, reactive, silent, smooth and able to discharge all the available power to the ground, making the ride effective and satisfying. The steel frame (front) designed for 27.5 wheels absorbs all the vibrations with incredible effectiveness and in general offers a great sense of safety and stability. & nbsp; It also really leads to wanting to pedal more and to give all of themselves in a similar way to what the carbon frame did but with the solidity and robustness typical of this material. I add that these sensations have also been confirmed by trying the bike with a cool mind, a sign that it was not suggestion or just the exaltation of the moment. Would you recommend the Forgione frames to your friend? Yes, and I'll do it as soon as the opportunity arises, both for the artistic / technical quality of Vincenzo's work (the Silver Fillet Brazing he made is ART PURE and an immense joy for the eyes) and to make him to know the extraordinary person who is and if possible his friends of Gesualdo, who welcomed me as one does with a dear friend who has not been seen for a long time. Even exchanging a chat with fans of this fantastic vehicle is a pleasure! But I would warn this person, if he has never had his own handcrafted loom, that he will have to put aside a lot of prejudices that lead him to evaluate a bicycle based on the parameters dictated by the market, really hard to uproot from his mind without seeing the result of the finished work. The question is that you simply can't understand the extraordinary difference between an industrial and a hand-made and custom-made bike if you don't try it, while trying to imagine from the various stories of the other Forgione users or from those who have a "really his" bike, I couldn't do it until I got into the saddle. Many times we think that all this is a mere habit of vanity and ego in possessing something unique, in reality I have found that it is not so or at least not entirely and these aspects really take a back seat when pedaling you realize that you and the bike are in perfect harmony because they are designed to be together. Bicycling is always nice because it gives a great sense of freedom and satisfaction let's be clear, I certainly don't spit in the dish where I "cycled" because in any case I did some nice hikes and I lived among the best moments of my life, but with a companion of the genre is simply all elevated to an indescribable well-being, driving pleasure and exploration. I am very happy to have had the chance to have this experience and can only say: Thanks Vincenzo!
