Mondonico Futura Leggero. Full race, yet affordable steel Italian frame.

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Mondonico's history

The Mondonico family might be the oldest Italian framebuilding dynasty. Starting in 1929 with Giuseppe Mondonico and his brother Angelo, the Mondonicos have been personally building steel, lugged frames with their own hands. That tradition has continued up until very recently, with third generation builder Mauro Mondonico working side by side with his father, Antonio. The family's involvement with cycling and racing is deeper now than ever.

The Mondonicos believe that their family has always lived in Concorezzo, a small village just outside Milan, very near the famous Monza Motor Speedway. Giuseppe Mondonico, the founder of the Mondonico shop, and his brother Angelo had been industrial mechanics. No one knows anymore exactly what that work entailed. But the family knows that they were always mad about bicycles, cycling and cycle racing. The pictures of Binda and Girardengo in the opening credits of OLN's Giro d'Italia a few years ago were from Giuseppe Mondonico's collection of racers and racing from that great age of cycling.

	Angelo (left) and Giuseppe (right), with a racer picking up his bike.

On opening the shop in 1929, Giuseppe immediately started building frames and supplying the local racers. No one knows where Giuseppe acquired this skill. Mauro supposes that other framebuilders had taught him. While Giuseppe built frames, Angelo did the repairs. At that time in Italy, this was a big and important business because bicycles were the primary form of transport, especially in a small village like Concorezzo.

In those pre-war years, Giuseppe built frames using both Columbus and Falck tubing. The special characteristic of Mondonico frame building, the use of pins to secure the joints instead of a tack braze, had not yet been adopted. That came later.

With the coming of the great worldwide depression in 1932, Mauro says, the majority of the work done in the shop was in repairs. It was a hard job because in those days, no one had much money to pay for their work. Giuseppe and Angelo had to work long hours for very small sums of money.

Giuseppe and Angelo worked in the shop together through the war. As the economy had strengthened some in the ensuing years, life was a bit kinder to the Mondonico family. They opened a coffee shop (called a "bar" in Italy) next to the bike shop.

At the end of the war, the economy and conditions in general in Italy were terrible. The famous movie The Bicycle Thief shows the poverty of that time, in which there could be no more valuable possession than a bicycle and the mobility it could give. After the war, Angelo left the shop to return to industrial work. He passed away in 1971.

Original head tube badge used by Giuseppe Mondonico.

Meanwhile, Giuseppe continued to work in the shop, building frames and repairing bikes. As Antonio grew up, he worked in the shop. As a young man, Antonio was given the job of working on the racing bikes. The frames Antonio built then used Columbus SL and SP tubing. In those days, the lugs were long and heavy, called "lastra", being pressed and welded. The modern investment cast lugs didn't start showing up until 1977-1978.

When Giuseppe died December 30, 1973, the shop was closed. Antonio went to work in other framebuilding shops that were looking for a skilled builder. He worked in Gianni Motta's shop for two years, 1976 and 1977. He then moved on to the Colnago shop and built frames there until 1979. Colnago, as a young man, rode for a team that was headquartered in Giuseppe's shop and would visit the Mondonico home. In Italy, the cycling world is one big family.

While Mondonico worked at the Motta shop, he also worked as a team mechanic. This work was completely unrelated to his duties at Motta. This was purely an avocation born of love of the sport. Antonio had a French friend who was bringing strong riders into Italy, among them, a young Sean Kelly. Antonio was this team's mechanic. Antonio still remembers the young amateur Kelly who came to sleep in the Mondonico home in Concorezzo before riding and winning the Piccolo Giro di Lombardia. Mondonico has said that when a builder not only builds the bikes, but goes into the field and assists the racer, he gains insights that are impossible to gain any other way. Faliero Masi, another of the great Milan builders, calls it the only laboratory for a builder. In this modern age of multi-million dollar teams, this laboratory is almost impossible to re-create.

In 1979, Antonio Mondonico opened his own shop, and the Mondonico name was again available to discerning riders. There had never been a time when Antonio didn't build frames in his adult life. But for several years, it was always for others and it was those others who sold his work with their name.

Throughout the late 1970's and early 1980's, Paolo Guerciotti experienced a boom in demand for his bikes and frames. He needed a guiding hand to make sure that the frames were of high quality. Up until then, Guerciotti had several different builders building his frames. In 1984, Paolo Guerciotti and Antonio Mondonico went into partnership to produce both Guerciotti and Mondonico frames. They were wildly successful, with Antonio supervising the production of about 2,000 frames a year.

But, as they worked together, it became apparent that their goals were not really identical. Realizing this, they ended the partnership in 1989. Antonio returned to his real love; building a few, special frames, with his own hands. Instead of the big, tilt-up concrete factory under Guerciotti-Mondonico Cycles, the Mondonico shop was in the back of their house. There, as Antonio and third generation builder Mauro worked, there was a constant stream of cycling and racing aficionados, coming to visit and talk bikes and racing.

Mondonico has built frames that have won Classics and graced the podium of both the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia. Sadly, as in years past, others got to take the credit for Mondonico's work. The frames he built for Claudio Chiappucci, as with Singer for Poulidor and Masi for Merckx, received the decals of other factories.

Today Mauro Mondonico, Antonio's son, has the family's frames built in a small shop in northern italy shop run by second generation builders. The artisan tradition continues.

All Mondonico frames are built with Columbus tubing.

Mondonico Futura Leggero. Full race, yet affordable steel Italian frame.

Accessories. Jerseys, bottles, to complement your Mondonico frame.