In a message dated 4/22/03 10:24:29 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Bikerdaver writes:
> There you go again with the "Team Issue" labeling. By what reasoning do you
> make this claim?! How in the heck do you know its a "Team Issue"? What
> identifying marks make it a "Team Issue"?
>
Again, this is specific to integrated headset bikes from the 50s through
about 1971.
There was a time, when the designation "Team Issue" meant something. Celeste
bikes were not offered for sale to the general public, there was the "race
bike" in Celeste, and there were the civilian bikes that were sold to the
public. It's probably partly semantics and the rest marketing; the Celeste
"team bikes" were the bikes issued or sold to "Teams". If you got one, you
got a "Team Issue" bike that was different than the bikes sold to non-racers.
I don't know if the "team" bikes were made in the Reparto Corsa or not. If
they were, then they certainly were different from the non-Reparto Corsa
bikes. THIS is the tradition that started the Bianchi "mystique". The Coppi
era. There was no catalogue designation for "Team Issue" but that IS what
everyone called them, at least here in the US. When Bianchi went "modern" in
the 70s, some (Piaggio?) marketing...person...got quite free with the model
names and divorced them from meaning.
I can't help you with the mish mash Bianchi created with the models after
1971 or so. Regarding the early bikes, (please take this as friendly advice)
I would recommend you relax and get with the program, and accept "team issue"
as a correct term for the Celeste race bikes. I don't know at what point they
dropped "Campione del Mondo" from the downtube, but I would suggest that it
was at that time (or shortly thereafter) that the Columbus tubing, celeste
race bikes became known (if only in the vernacular) as "Team Issue" because
that is what they were.
As far as the later bikes go, bearing in mind the earlier traditions, I would
reserve the "team issue" designation for the Reparto Corsa bikes only.
Anything off the main factory assembly line, is just a bike with celeste
paint on it . But that's just an opinion. Given facts and history, I'd change
it.
Stevan Thomas
Alameda, CA