The producers
In its Italian factory, Sarto makes some of the most desirable bikes in the world. So why isn’t it a household name?
They are a very particular customer. I promised not to say we work for them,’ says Enrico Sarto, casting an appraising eye over a frame with a curious cut-out in the top tube. Dressed in creased cargo shorts and well-worn polo shirt, Enrico is not what you might expect the CEO of Italy’s largest custom framebuilders to look like. Wiry, with unkempt hair, an easy smile and grubby, calloused hands, his appearance is more builder than businessman; his manner as he bounces about the Sarto workshop more excited child than managerial suit.
‘I love production, to make, to check, to find solutions. For me the room with tools is my office. I want to finish each day and be able to say I have made something, not just sat answering emails.’
And make things Sarto certainly does. Last year it turned out 2,500 frames from its factory in Pianiga (population 11,000) on the southeast edge of Italy’s cycling ‘golden triangle’, which runs between Padua, Treviso and Vicenza and is responsible for 30% of Italy’s bike manufacturing. Pinarello, Wilier, Fondriest, Olympia, Scapin and Bottecchia are just some of the companies based in an area headed in the hierarchy of cycling needs by the mighty Campagnolo to the north. Yet there’s one clear difference between Sarto and Pinarello et al: only a handful of Sarto frames leave the workshop actually branded Sarto.
Do unto others
‘Last year we made 300 frames under our name,’ says Enrico Sarto. ‘The rest were invoiced to nearly 400 different companies, from local bike shops that just wanted one or two frames to big companies wanting us to produce 50 or more. Which companies we cannot always say.’
Sarto started life back in the late 1940s as what is known locally as a terzista, a fabricator that builds on behalf of others. As teenagers looking for a way to make money in the midst of the Italian diaspora and a declining post-war economy, Enrico’s father and his brothers went knocking on bicycle factory doors offering to take frames and prep them ready for painting.
‘They started to work on behalf of Atala and Torpado in Padua [both highly respected marques of their day], and then slowly began to make complete bikes,’ says Enrico. ‘By the 1970s they were producing 200 bikes per day, completely built up. Can you imagine? By the 1980s they were making bikes for Basso, Pinarello, Moser, Scapin… many, many companies. Not designing them but fabricating them to those companies’ designs, to be painted up as bikes made by those companies.’
As is de rigeur in the Italian framebuilding industry, Enrico followed his father into the business aged 18 and now runs the company, while his wife is a paint designer. That they make bikes for others is perhaps less common, especially today, but the Sarto brothers were certainly not alone in the pursuit when they set up in the 1950s. One of the drawbacks that comes with the territory is that few brands are likely to openly divulge that their frames are actually made by someone else, so for the best part of several decades the family name – appositely translating as ‘tailor’ – was relatively unknown.
‘In the 1970s my uncle decided to buy my father out of the business and to start making bikes under the Sarto name himself, but after a few years he went bankrupt. So there are some frames we produced in that era with our name on, but not many [see picture bottom right]. My father then stepped back in to restart the business with the money he had been given for leaving! I don’t remember it well, though. I was just a child at the time.’
One man who does remember is Enrico’s father, Antonio, who has been busily shuffling around in the background while Enrico regales this potted history of the family business.
Sure-footing
A barrel-chested octogenarian, Antonio smiles broadly when introduced, offering a workmanlike hand much like his son’s, although smart chinos and a pressed shirt indicate a man from a bygone era. He cordially enquires in Italian after the Queen, as if he knows her personally, before twirling on his heels and pointing at his feet.
Antonio explains that he made his business in brazed steel, over time transitioning to TIG welding in aluminium and titanium as market trends dictated. However, in 2002 the company felt it necessary to turn its attention to carbon fibre and, judging by Antonio’s shoes, it’s been fully embraced by both generations. From the front they look like a standard pair of leather loafers, but closer inspection shows a modified sole with carbon fibre leaf springs in the heels.
‘These are his suspended shoes,’ translates Enrico as his father beams proudly. ‘He made them as he was having problems standing for long periods, and now his hip pain is gone. We have a patent and are waiting on feedback from doctors on the shoes’ medical benefits.’
Does that mean Sarto is about to bring out a range of shoes alongside its bikes? The presentation of two more pairs, this time stilettoes, might seem to indicate such, but at the question both men laugh. ‘Hopefully we will sell the patent, it is not our job to sell shoes, we are too busy making frames,’ says Enrico.
The frames in question, now exclusively carbon fibre, are made in the tube-to-tube fashion, which on the face of it is not dissimilar to the steel fabrication of Sarto’s past. Indeed, many of the machines and jigs here belong to the latter half of the 20th century but have been repurposed to cut and mitre carbon tubes. These tubes are then bonded with epoxy resin in jigs – a little like tacking a metal frame prior to welding – before the joints are wrapped in carbon sheets and cured to create structural joints. Once out of the oven, the wrapped joints are sandblasted then rewrapped and baked again to provide a cosmetic layer, before being handfinished and sent to Sarto’s in-house paintshop.
In this, Sarto is doing nothing new – custom carbon framebuilders the world over employ similar processes – but what is perhaps unique is just how much Sarto does under one roof, albeit making use of other terzista.
Divided loyalties
When we came upon Enrico earlier this morning he was busy cleaning moulds, great metal blocks the insides of which are machined out to create a half a tube shape in relief. The moulds aren’t made by Sarto but rather by another company to Sarto’s designs, but it uses them to create many of its tubes in-house. Mostly.
‘We have maybe 70 moulds here to make things such as chainstays and top tubes, but other parts such as many down tubes are made by one of our suppliers, which are also in the Veneto region,’ says Enrico. ‘All of the frames we sell under the Sarto brand are unique, but they may well share some characteristics with frames we sell to other companies, or they might be entirely different.’
At Cyclist we have tested a number of Sarto frames under different labels, from homegrown British brands to industry stalwarts, from upstart, high-end affairs to brands trying to pass off a Sarto frame as their own creations. As such we can vouch for the quality of the framesets, and in that we’re not alone. Sarto has gained an enviable reputation within the industry and among more discerning consumers.
‘Many brands won’t speak about Sarto because they already have a reputation or have put a lot of money into marketing and want to make the bike their own, but others will use our reputation to promote their bikes,’ says Enrico. ‘So it can be hard. If you make Ferrari’s products you want to say you make Ferrari’s products, but if Ferrari makes your products, it might not want everyone to know. For me it really doesn’t matter, though. We have a job to do for other brands and we do it for them. If someone wants to hand me a project with millions invested, then of course I am happy to make the frames under their name.’
So if Enrico is unfazed by the accolades, and if the sub-contracting market is so potentially lucrative, why bother making Sarto-branded frames at all?
Can’t buy happiness
It won’t have gone unnoticed that most of the carbon manufacturing that goes on in cycling happens in the Far East, and through the transition of fabrication from Europe to Asia many established brands have closed, been sold or have had to contract out to Chinese factories, leaving little more than assembly lines and warehouses in their wake. For Sarto this has posed various problems, but with prudence it has weathered the storm.
‘Pinarello wanted us to be an exclusive partner for making its bikes back in the early 1990s. It offered us money to expand, which my father was in the process of doing at the time – buying the building we are in now. But my father said no, and he was right to. In the end Pinarello went to another factory in Bassano and struck the same deal. Pinarello pulled out of Bassano after one year, and that factory lost everything. We lost Pinarello, of course, but we had others like them to keep us busy, and we are still here.’
Sarto the house brand, then, is as much a form of future-proofing as anything else. Enrico says that in the longer term it would be advantageous to make more Sartos – the margins making one’s own product are far
‘If Ferrari makes your products, it might not want everyone to know. For me it doesn’t matter’
better for a start – but at the same time he is only too aware that the sub-contracting business is a two-way street, bringing large bulk orders, shared knowledge and sometimes even turning customers onto Sarto once they find out they’ve been riding a rebadged one all along. Besides, Enrico has a philosophy.
‘The only way to make a million in bicycles is to start with two. Look at old racers who made bikes. Moser closed, Fondriest had to sell, Merckx was successful for a while but had to sell, Lemond closed. I say these guys are better left riding! Cipollini is clever – he puts only his name to the frames so he gets back royalties, but the guy behind those bikes is crazy. For most bike brands the only way to make real money is to hope another brand wants to buy you out. But for us it is different because we have our Sarto brand, our contract work and the history, and we can provide high-quality frames in small quantities and fulfil custom orders, something the Far East cannot. For this we can live well, but it does mean we must reinvest everything back into the company, and that we will never be millionaires!’
That might not sound like an appealing proposition to a would-be investor, but then Enrico Sarto isn’t looking for investors. He’s happy as he is. With his business model he still has his father around, 86 years old and refusing to retire, and he sees his wife every day. ‘I also get to make my seven-year-old son a custom carbon bike,’ and, as we find out when we stop by his office to say goodbye, he has his workforce.
‘Today is the worst day of the month – pay day!’ he says with faux consternation, breaking into a jocular laugh. ‘I have my family, but I also have 15 children here. Sometimes she asks for a little bit more for her kid this month, he asks for some more money to support his wife, and I am happy that I can always do the maximum for them. We make the best bikes of course – I would say that – but this job is important as it keeps a lot of people happy.’ James Spender is features editor of Cyclist and only produces work under his own name
Enrico has a philosophy: ‘The only way to make a million in bicycles is to start with two’