As usual, when I go to Italy, I stay for a very short time, but during my last trip in the middle of April I found the way to squeeze an extra “thing to do” inside my agenda . Rushing all the other things was worth it though.

Castelnuovo del Garda, that’s where one of the most skilled Italian framebuilders lives and works, I’m talking about Mr. Tiziano Zullo, one of the few left of the old Italian school.

For almost 4 decades, Zullo has been handcrafting professional bicycle frames and, even in a carbon fiber era, the quality and the details of his frames makes them appreciated by professional racers all around the world. In Europe, especially in countries such as Germany, Netherlands (Zullo, for several years, was the frame builder for the professional team TVM) and Belgium, but also on the other side of the globe, such as in Asia and United States.

Believe it or not, this master was almost ready to consider starting another job during the 90’s, when aluminum replaced steel in framebuilding, but fortunately he didn’t. Then the market started asking for steel and made-to-measure frames again, and for someone who never stopped believing in this material, this was a sort of revenge. Of course, during the years he started offering what the market was asking, such as aluminum and carbon frames, but with steel it was always another thing. Now he’s back to his roots, and he’s doing pretty good, I have to say.

Nowadays, his catalogue offers only steel frames, and Mr.Tiziano takes care of the entire building process, starting with cutting the tubing and ending with a professional paint job, everything takes place in his workshop.

He offers a mix of modern and vintage frames, some tig welded, some lugged, but always made out of a top quality steel, and with that attention to the details that only a very few framebuilders in the world will be able to guarantee to their costumers.

During my visit he wanted to show me the procedure of the brazing on a fork made for the “Vintage frame“, so check out a few cool pictures of the process.

At the end of my very – unfortunately – short visit, I also had the chance to put my eyes on his secret treasure… many huge drawers, packed with campy vintage parts, all NOS, all in their boxes, believe me, amazing…

For those of you who are wondering.. no, they’re not for sale!

Only one regret, my visit was really too short. So be sure that I’ll go back as soon as I can.