Torelli Imports 1999 Alu Wing

Summary:
After being able to ride this frame for a few months I have come to really love this bike. It has the perfect combination of stiffness to ride quality for my 172 lbs in a 62 cm frame size. The only time it gets to me is on really rough roads at the end of a long ride. For those rides a would probably prefer my steel bike, at least for the last 30 miles of a 100 mile ride.The Wound Up fork is awesome, the bike corners like it's on rails. And the bike is quite a looker. I would definitely recommend Torelli in general and this frameset specifically.

Strengths:

Light and rigid
Awesome paint job

Weaknesses:

None

Similar Products Used:
None

Bike Setup:

Full Dura-Ace
King nothreadset
speedplays
TTT Prima 220
Flite Saddle
Wound Up fork

Summary:
Just built up my 62 cm Torelli Alu Wing w/ Wound Up carbon fork. I had both the frame and fork painted in Molteni Orange, and the paint job is awesome! The frame weighed 3.3 pounds before painting. The little details about the frame are neat and show care and craftsmanship. All the welds are nicely finished, the fr. der. braze on, cable stops, and shifter bosses are screwed into the frame to prevent the heat from welding these hurting the frame. The Columbus Altec2 tubeset is amazingly light for such a big frame and the mega downtube and mega toptube are neat. The rear dropouts are attached to the frame with screws at the seatstays and bonded at the chainstays. It looks very clean compared to the welded jobs that most aluminum frames receive at the dropouts. It also allows for easy replacement of the dropouts in the event of an accident. I had a small problem with the alignment of the rear vertical dropouts, but a little bit of careful filing took care of that. No problems there, but Torelli should have noticed that. They did however offer to call tag the frame and fix it, but I was able to fix it myself. Torelli did do a great job with the rest of the frame prep however as all the threads were chased and the BB shell and headtube were faced after painting. This allowed for very easy buildup.I'm going out for my first ride today. I'll let you know what I think after a few rides.I would give it 5 chilis except for the problem w/ the rear dropout alignment. So I will have to give it 4 chilis since Torelli missed that problem. My next review will rate the ride qualities.

Strengths:

Great paint job
very light!
good stiffness

Weaknesses:

$$expensive$$

Similar Products Used:

LeMond Zurich
Bianchi CDI