Gianni came to Gesualdo to collect his bike on delivery day. After riding it for a while, he sent me the text below, which I publish as always without any changes. Thank you, Gianni!

My friend Gianni with his bicycle with a Forgione frame
Gianni with his Forgione bike.

I met Vincenzo Forgione five years ago, shortly after buying my new carbon bike. I had tried a series of other bikes: aluminium/carbon, all-aluminium, and my old steel bike, which I thought was obsolete. The new carbon bike satisfied me, but knowing the qualities and characteristics of steel well, having studied them, I still had my heart set on a made-to-measure steel bike.

The most important thing about a bike is the size of the frame, which has to fit each individual body perfectly. Yet this is overlooked by every manufacturer and retailer, who confuse things by offering you a series of technological innovations that are certainly nice and sometimes useful. But the idea that you can make up for the right size with the adjustment range of the stem and the saddle is wrong, because each of us has measurements that are almost never perfectly proportioned, so we end up adapting.

Weight is the easiest technical feature for everyone to understand, and in fact it is perhaps the first thing people ask a retailer. Yet it is not the most important figure, and it is worth knowing that if you only think about weight you have to spend a lot of money on super-light components.

In June I was finally able to order my made-to-measure bike from Vincenzo. I bought mid-range components, and when I got on the saddle I had a special feeling: I felt the bike merging with my body, something I had never felt with other bikes. Steel absorbs the roughness of the tarmac well, and when you pedal you feel the elasticity of the frame giving you back all the energy you put into the pedals.

I could have avoided all these words and simply said thank you to Vincenzo, but knowing him is a stroke of luck, and not only for his art, passion and patience: he is a sincere, open and decent person, qualities that are harder and harder to find!

Thank you, Gianni, and send me more photos of your rides!