Want to hear the opinion of a Battaglin Owner on the Officina Battaglin Portofino Disc?
In this video, Orest Massiti from Canmore, Canada, tells everything you need to know about how the bike really rides.
A few months ago, Orest and his wife Susan visited us in Marostica during a long cycling trip.
It was the second time he visited us…
In fact, the first time he ordered a Portofino with disc brakes!
So, after one year and a half, we wanted to know if he was satisfied with the bike…
And here’s what he told us.
The decision to order a custom Portofino after visiting the Battaglin workshop
“Two years ago I planned to come here to Italy to ride in the Alps with three friends from Canmore.
I remember reading and watching Giovanni Battaglin in the eighties when I started to cycle on how he won the Giro and Vuelta…
I had learned that he had a museum with all different artifacts from when he raced…
So I wanted to come by and see the museum.
I knew that he had been making bikes back in the day… I didn’t know that he was back making steel bikes.
I caught my eye on the Portofino.
I had no intention of buying a bike… But it was my son who convinced me saying “You’ve been buying us bikes and sporting equipment for all these years, you should treat yourself!”.
So I got talking to Alex and Giovanni took all my measurements (because they are custom fit).
I really fell in love with the looks of the bike.
We basically spent one afternoon here… And when we came back for the second day I made up my mind to order a Portofino.
The rest, as they say, it’s history.“
A bike too beautiful to ride… And its ride feel
“That was at the end of September 2019.
The bike arrived in January 2020 and I was looking at this bike in amazement, looking at the quality and such.
Last summer (summer 2020) every chance I had I’d get it onto the road.
It blew away my expectations, people would see the bike and go with “It’s too nice to ride”…
And I would tell them “As beautiful as it is to look at, it even rides more beautiful than what it is to look at”.
It exceeded my expectations, in all departments.
I wasn’t interested in getting a carbon bike because I broke one in a bike race back in the nineties and I wanted to stay away from it for that reason.
I’ve been on rides of up to 270 kms, locally and where we live in Canada…
And when I get off the bike my body feels totally fresh (other than my legs that are tired).
Every time you push on the pedals (and at my age it gets harder and harder) every pedal stroke in the bike is so efficient…
And one thing that I found all along with the bike is how fast it is descending.
One of the things that I was debating on and Alex convinced me to go with was disc brakes.
Now that I’ve been in the Alps and even on any of the roads around Marostica I’m glad that I chose that…
Because the bike is so fast going downhill, so having those disc brakes and their stopping power… I don’t know if a rim brake bike would have been the same.
I wouldn’t have been as safe, I wouldn’t have felt as safe descending with a rim-brake bike as I do on the disc.
It’s scary how fast it is…
It really is a joy to ride in these mountains here.”
Do you want to discover Giovanni Battaglin’s secret formula to building a custom steel bike that rides like a dream?
Now you can access our FREE video series “The Man of Steel” and get a behind-the-scenes look at the specific process used by the 1981 Giro winner in his eponymous bike workshop in Italy.
Click HERE to access the video series
