Bicycle Trader:

Cycling's Mad Scientist
- Pino Morroni - by Russell W. Howe
Special thanks to Mike Fraysee and Wayne Stetina and of course Pino.

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Pino Morroni invented and developed more cycling parts than any man alive! Or so the discussion went one day, while I was at work talking about last year's bike show at Anaheim. I heard that Pino had the most incredible booth filled with interesting and sometimes strange looking components. I decided to investigate. I contacted Mr. Morroni and we had a lengthy conversation. It was then that I decided Pino is truly cycling's Mad Scientist.

I recently met Pino at this year's Interbike show at Anaheim, CA. One evening, we sat down to talk. Of course, one doesnât really talk with Pino, you just try to hang on for the ride. In a machine gun-like burst, Pino spits out that his parts have been ridden by Merckx and Moser (during their setting of their Hour Records), Felice Gimondi, Gianni Bugno, Wayne and Dale Stetina, Greg LeMond, Andy Hampsten, and the list goes on. As we continue to talk, Pino bounces from one topic to another, never giving me a chance to digest all of his amazing stories.

I learned that Pino was born in Italy in 1920. As a young man, his first love was soccer and he played professionally. He was awarded the title "Journeyman lathe hand" at age sixteen for displaying talent as a machinist. At the insistence of some friends, he entered his first bicycle race. He broke away and was caught four times. On his fifth breakaway attempt, he was caught at the line and finished eighth. He progressed and won his share of races but WWII brought an abrupt end to his brief racing career. In the war, he served as a paratrooper in the Italian Army.

Although he was a prisoner of war for a period, the experience wasn't as terrifying as one might imagine. According to Mike Fraysee, "Pino is swapping war stories with my uncle. The pair are playing one-upmanship, trying to prove who had it harder. Pino tells us that he was captured and taken as a POW and was relating how hard it was to be a prisoner. Just when we began to feel sorry for him, Pino shows us a photo of himself playing soccer with British troops in North Africa!"

In 1958, Pino immigrated to the USA. He worked as a machinist for Chrysler in Detroit. On the weekends, he raced cars. Driving an old 1500cc Maserati, which he reworked in his backyard, Pino won his class at Indianapolis. In one race, he passed eighteen cars in one lap, a record that has never been broken at Indy. His performance was so spectacular that it caught the attention of Mr. Enzo Ferrari. Mr. Ferrari contacted him to discuss the possibility of driving for the Ferrari team. As Pino tells it, "I'm not a blue blood, so I never got to drive for Ferrari". Yet, it was the thought of driving for Ferrari that brought Pino back to cycling. He says, "I got back into cycling in 1968-69 for physical fitness; I'd hoped to drive for Ferrari." After a 24 year hiatus, he was back.

Pino's talent as a machinist is legendary. As word of his ability spread in the industry, a Swiss company which manufactured pacemakers, contacted him. The company was struggling with a stainless steel part inside their pacemaker. After approximately eight years of being implanted in the human body, it would corrode with potentially lethal results. They approached Pino to see if titanium held the answer. He went to his shop. One hour later, Voila! Pino accomplished what the Swiss believed was impossible. From titanium, he machined a very intricate and delicate screw with a threaded hole in the middle. Pino said, "that will be eight dollars". Curiously, the Swiss company would not pay Pino's price. The Swiss would only pay three dollars. Pino stood his ground but the Swiss needed more time to think it over. A week later, they finally called Pino and agreed to eight dollars but Pino declined the offer as he was tired of dealing with the company.

As Pino focused his genius and machining skills on cycling, there was no holding him back. Clearly, he designed and created frames, saddles, headsets, and bottom brackets that were twenty years ahead of his time.

Once again, he put his incredible machining skills to the test when he teamed up with Cecil Behringer. In the early seventies, they developed an eleven pound titanium track bike. Pino machined the lugs and tubing from solid bar stock. This would be a tremendous feat today, an impossible one over twenty years ago. Cecil did the brazing and the resulting bicycle was named the "PinoBehr" after its two creators. Pino took the bike to Rome to show it off. The conservative Italian cycling industry snickered. To prove the bikes strength, Pino threw down a gauntlet. He challenged all comers to a bike ride down all 138 of the famous Spanish Steps staircase in Rome. Pino rode alone as no one was willing to follow on their own bicycle.

In Brussels, Pino won two silver medals at the 1972 Invention show. One for his new shoe/cleat design and the other for his innovative magnesium railed saddle design. Pino's brother proudly sent photos of the awards ceremony to the mayor of Brussels. The mayor passed the photos on to Eddy Merckx. Somehow, Ernesto Colnago ended up with the photos and wrote to Pino requesting a headset, stem, BB and chain. This explains how Pino's parts ended up on Merckx's hour record bike. Although Pino is a prolific inventor, he has never enjoyed any financial success. According to Mr. Clyde Forney (the materials consultant for the PinoBehr project), "Pino gave away many of his ideas. If he was paid for all of his innovations he would be a very rich man today." Wayne Stetina mentioned that "Pino was always too quick to move on to the next project." Mike Fraysee pointed out that Pino never had the capital required to obtain patents for his ideas and thus was not able to fully develop his products from the prototype stage.

For example, Pino developed a cartridge bottom bracket in 1970. The single piece unit required the bottom bracket shell to be tapped completely from one side to the other. The BB was then screwed into the shell and held in place by lock rings on each side. Problems occurred with the chainline whenever the threads were not tapped perfectly straight or if the frame was not straight (quite often the case). The industry was not operating with the same precision and close tolerances that Pino demanded. This prevented him from mass producing his unique bottom bracket.

Wayne Stetina and his brother, Dale, used Pino's products with great success. I recently spoke with Wayne and he stated that Pino's wheels carried him to victory in several races. He rode them in the TTT at the Montreal Games and Dale rode them at the Junior World Championships. Wayne said, " the wheels were very fast but occasionally broke spokes." Mike Fraysee confirmed that Greg LeMond won a silver medal at the 1979 Junior World Championships astride a bicycle shod with Pino's wheels and a bottom bracket.

Additionally, Wayne used Pino's bottom bracket when he won the Nationals for the 1975 Time Trial and the 1976 and 77 road race. Dale was using one when he won the 78 road race. Wayne was quick to point out that Pino's first BB is the predecessor of today's cartridge systems.

Pino was always twenty years ahead of his time!

Decades ahead of the rest, Pino was building radially laced wheels that used straight pull spokes which threaded into the hub flange. Hours upon hours of labor are poured into each wheel. Imagine machining every hub and each spoke from solid titanium bar stock. Special rims were made by Ambrosio due to the hubs offset. All in the pursuit of producing wheels that are faster and rounder than any known to man.

Pino offers some interesting ideas on frame design as well. He believes that larger riders are handicapped because they are positioned further over the rear wheel. Placing so much weight over the rear wheel slows the rider down. As Pino tells it, "I said that the frame should be as short as possible. They sorta laugh at me for over twenty years on this subject; the new hour record confirms my belief."

Pino's proof is the hour record set by Moser. He showed me a photo of himself in which he is adjusting a saddle for Francesco Moser. Professor Conconi is with them at the Rome Velodrome on July 2, 1987. In another photo, Moser is riding a Pino-built track frame. The frame is significantly smaller than Moser's regular bike and the top tube measures a measly 50cm. The left hand drive bike is adorned with Pino's radial wheels and a 185mm stem. Pino machined the stem from titanium and to support this stem of unusual length, he ran a thin supporting rod from the brake hole in the fork to the stem binder bolt. Just like stem used by gold medalist Andrea Colinelli at Atlanta, only ten years later.

As I was leaving the Anaheim show, I ran into Pino for the last time. I asked him, "So what did you think of the show?" He responded, "Let me tell you something, if I get some money to develop my ideas· I will hit it so big, there won't be another show because there will be nothing to look at!" Obviously, Pino has a lot to say about the bike industry. In fact, Pino always has.

Cycling Utah's Classic Corner:

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Small man was a huge name in bicycle history

Giuseppe "Pino" Morroni died February 11, 1999. "Who is Pino Morroni?", you may ask. He was probably the most well known, yet never heard about, person in the cycling community. Eddy Merckx knew him, so did Greg LeMond and Andrew Hampsten. Francesco Moser, Felice Gimondi and Gianni Bugno knew him as well. They knew him because his inventions and ideas helped carry all of them to their greatest victories.

I first met Pino at the Interbike Expo about four years ago. Among all the glitz and showmanship was this small, haphazard booth with a crowd of people looking over shoulders and between other folks. Being a curious sort and hoping to see something different, I waited for a spot to open so I could see what the buzz was all about. Finally, the crowd thinned a bit, and several of the people leaving the booth were famous racers or media types. "Cool, I’ve got to see what’s happening in there."

Immediately upon entering this 8 foot by 8 foot booth, I was handed a wheel by this small man dressed in jeans and flannel type shirt. He stepped closer, and said in a raised voice, "You can’t breaka my wheelz!"

To which I replied, "Wha..".

And before I could finish the first word, I was given a five minute, loud, broken English speech explaining exactly the three hundred reasons why I couldn’t breaka his wheelz. This little man was Pino Morroni, and I didn’t want to leave until I heard every word he had to say, Italian or English.

Around the booth were titanium stems, bottom brackets, skewers and seatposts, several frames, and these wheels. The wheels looked normal at first glance, but as was quickly pointed out, they were not your average wheels.

The hubs were either Campy or Pino made - normal enough - the spokes were normal as well as I could tell, some being titanium.

But the business end here was at the rim. The spoke was threaded further than normal, and there was a nut on the inside and the outside of the rim wall. The rim was sandwiched between two alloy nuts.

The idea, which was finally conveyed in my on the spot Italian language course, was that the wheels were trued and tensioned in normal fashion with the outside nut, then the inside nut was tightened down to isolate the rim and allow no ovalizing under the rider’s weight. The result was "de strongesta wheelz", and no room was left for questions or opinions. "That’s it!"

Even though Pino held court for sure in his little booth, there was none of the chest pounding, "I invented this or that" boastfulness so prevalent elsewhere at the expo. He never mentioned that both Merckx’s and Moser’s hour records were accomplished with several of his parts. That Eddy Merckx would consult with him about equipment and use his parts throughout his career. Lemond’s Tour de France victories, Gimondi’s Giro wins, Bugno’s World Championships and Andy Hampsten’s Giro and Alpe d’Huez victories: All with the help of the man nicknamed Pino (small) because he was born two months premature.

Morroni’s most legendary project (although there were many) was a track bike built with his partner, Cecil Behringer. Together, in the early 70s, they built an 11-pound track bike with 6/4 titanium.

This stronger version of titanium was not available in tube form at that time, so Pino machined all the tubes, fork blades, stays and lugs from solid bars to a wall thickness of 0.5 mm. Pino was the machinist and Cecil did the brazing.

To add strength to the frame, they brazed small hollow tubes across the inside walls of the main tubes of the frame. These small tubes were machined from titanium as well. To prove the bike’s strength, Pino would ride it down stairs, over curbs, anywhere he could think of to prove it’s -and his wheels’ - merits.

This bike was also left side drive. The reasons: track races are ridden counter-clockwise, and putting the crank on the left allowed the right crankarm to be closer to the frame creating more room for banking clearance.

Also, tracks are circular, therefore by placing the extra weight of the crank to the inside of the circle, a rider pushes the extra weight a shorter distance each lap than if it were on the right, or outside, of the circle. "That’s it!" as one writer put it, "Pino is about splitting hairs that nobody else even sees."

Pino Morroni was born in Italy in 1920. As a teen he raced bikes for a short time, until the start of World War Two. But he was always an inventor, and became a qualified machinist by the age of sixteen.

He was a prisoner of war in Northern Africa, after which he returned home and carried on with the business of inventing.

In 1958, Pino immigrated to America and began working for Chrysler in Detroit as a machinist. It was at this time he found a love of auto racing and applied his skills there, both as a driver and creator of lightweight components for race cars.

It was an interest from Enzo Ferrari that returned Pino to the bike in the mid 60s. After winning his division at Indy with a car he built at home, Pino received a call from Ferrari regarding a position on the factory team as a driver. Morroni began riding his bike to sharpen his fitness in hopes of driving for Ferrari.

The offer never came, but he discovered that the bike was still in his heart, and he once again turned his attentions in that direction.

Pino was 79 when pneumonia and emphysema ended his life. But his contributions, and especially his legendary aura will last the life of bicycle racing.

As another writer commented, "Pino knows so much about bicycles and bearings and speed and strength, that everything he says is the last word on the subject . . . If you know a lot about the subject already, if you think you’re an expert, you’ll still learn three things per minute - and that’s from the 50 percent that you’re understanding."