Kevin and all,
The Confente "thing" has many components which contribute to our current
state of "understanding". What Mario was and was not is an interesting
subject. Much of what is out there in the form of opinions is based on t
he efforts of a few people who had an interest in taking advantage of th
e "situation" after Mario passed away and it all happened a number of ye
ars ago. Those original efforts set the snowball effect in motion and th
e advent of the internet and the mailing lists have fueled it ever since
. As with the person asking $9000 for one; most of the promotion is for
the sake of money and profit. That being said, please let me contribute
my observations based on my personal contact with both Mario and Faliero
Masi while at Masi in Carlsbad and the period shortly thereafter. In ad
dition to my personal experiences with Mario I am a framebuilder/painter
myself and know a bit about the processes involved and at what level Ma
rio's work sits. I've handled a good number of Confente frames over the
years and I'm really familiar with the work.
Let's begin with Mario before he came to the US. There is no doubt that
Mario was considered one of the better framebuilders in Italy back in th
e day. But for some reason Mario REALLY wanted to come to America and ge
t OUT of Italy. We know for a fact that Ernesto Colnago wanted to "buy h
im out" before he came here; Chuck Schmidt has a copy of the letter sent
to Mario in Carlsbad containing an "offer (Colnago hoped) he couldn't r
efuse". Mario had escaped from Italy and had no intention of going back,
not for a generous offer from Colnago (which would have buried Mario in
the Colnago organization) or anything else. So there is no question Mar
io had made his mark in Italy, even though almost all of his work had th
e Masi name on it. But Masi turned out to be his ticket to freedom.
The period of time that this all takes place must be taken into consider
ation. Save for Albert Eisentraut, American framebuilding in the "modern
era" was just being born. Mario was a big fish in a little pond. Most c
yclists were on the Italian bandwagon, even though English and French fr
amebuilders built frames every bit as good in a technical sense as the I
talians, somehow the hype and the sexy graphics of Italian bikes ruled.
Much of this is actually due to the prominence of the racers in Italy an
d on the Continent being highly regarded and therefore often used to pro
mote the bikes they rode. I suspect had the English been the dominate fo
rce in racing at the time we would be MUCH more English-centric in our t
aste for exotic frames. Marketing is everything. Top end English and Fre
nch frames of the period are every bit the equal in construction as the
Italians. In other words, the Italians were as crude by modern standards
as anyone else. The next level of detailed and precise construction act
ually began in the US with Eisentraut.
Working at Masi was enlightening for me. I had a number of bikes at that
time including English, French, Italian, and American. My Eisentraut se
t the standard for me in both ride quality AND fit and finish. Yes, the
same Eisentraut that Faliero himself stood 20 feet from (because Italian
s never get up close to judge another framebuilders work; they wait unti
l you go away and then look, but from a distance they pronounce the bike
no good). Faliero told me my Eisentraut was no good on account of the w
ay the seat stays were attached! He also said that my Colnago was no goo
d. I had both a Masi (Italian) and a Colnago at the time; and the Colnag
o was a far superior ride than any of the 7 or 8 Masis I owned in my siz
e. The bottom line is that Italians, at least these ones, were VERY inse
cure people. That means to me that they knew that they were no different
than anyone else, but had to keep up appearances. Mario would come in t
o Masi on weekends and fix whatever went wrong on his end during the wee
k; and using quite crude methods I might add. Faliero also did some "fun
ny" things that he wanted to hide. Like the time he decided to trim 1mm
off of a steering column of a fork while the bike was completely assembl
ed and in a bike stand. He slipped with the hacksaw and damaged the pain
t big time. The bike was immediately removed from the workshop and wheel
ed into a closet in the office. The painter had to secretly come in on t
he weekend and fix it. I don't know what they were trying to protect. We
all knew what was going on and our impressions of them were much worse
by them trying to hind the stuff than by just being human and getting on
with it.
Mario was a good craftsman for sure, but not at all the best brazer with
brass I've ever seen. Both Joe Starck and Dave Tesch could braze circle
s around Mario as far as clean brazing goes. What Mario did with lugs ba
rely qualifies as custom by today's standards and much of it was done my
pantograph and with stamped parts to make a production operation out of
it. Had he stayed with Recht (who actually fired Mario from Bicycles by
Confente since Recht owned the company and the tooling and building he
occupied) Mario would have been using the investment cast lugs which eli
minated pretty much all of the interesting hand labor involved in frameb
uilding. I suspect Mario would be into titanium and carbon fiber these d
ays. His only interest was in racing bikes. Mario was not even close to
a well rounded framebuilder like is common these days. It takes a lot mo
re knowledge to build a variety of types of frames in different styles a
s opposed to making one bike one way and that's it. A lot of the Italian
s know very little about anything other than racing bikes. The English,
French, and Americans are all much more progressive in that respect. To
be a true custom framebuilder one has to do better than just make one fr
ame the same basic way every time.
Getting away from Masi for me was the best thing; because they did not w
ant to share knowledge. What we learned at Masi came from our own effort
s on weekends at home in our own work spaces and from Ron Smith, the ori
ginal painter who taught me the essence of what I know today.
I think a lot of the "value" of a Confente is coming from those who are
protecting their investments; especially those who have bought them in t
he last 10 years or so and had to pay through the nose for them. They wo
uld prefer not to lose their ass if and when they decide to off the bike
. There are a ton of frames that eclipse what Mario did from periods bef
ore, during, and after his time. His untimely death is probably the bigg
est factor, combined with the marketing that preceded that. Had McLean b
een in the same position as Mario when he passed, there might be more in
terest in his work now. But still since Mario had high dollar backing an
d support from the beginning, his graphics and marketing (through Recht
and Masi, CA) gave him a huge advantage. Throw in "I'm Italian" and ther
e is the main difference. Mario did have a superior sense of style to Ma
Lean; but in a technical sense I'll bet the McLean is a better built mac
hine.
My opinion is that much of the Confente mystique is perceived as opposed
to real. But there is nothing new about that. As always there are a bun
ch of quiet small builders who do much superior work to the builders who
are in a position to do a lot of promotion. The lesser knowns do work f
or which they will never be paid and are really appreciated by only a fe
w connoisseurs. The other approach works better in the marketplace for a
number of reasons, and one can minimize their framebuilding efforts and
their creative investment in time and effort by doing so. But down the
road 50 to 100 years there will be a different perspective I'm sure, sin
ce the work will have to stand on it's own merits. At that time, when no
ne of this matters to any of us, the frames will speak for themselves. I
t will be a different tune, I'm sure.
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA
