PROLOGO, 1989

‘This was the time-trial bike of Franco Chioccioli in the late 1980s. Francesco Moser had this shape of bike before us, with a 700c rear wheel and 650b front, so this bike design was not new, but it was beautiful. We shaped all the tubes, the curves, ourselves, but the tubes are from Columbus. The lugs have “GPT” engraved on them – Giovanni Pinarello, Treviso, the name of my father. We won the 1991 Giro d’italia with Franco. He had tried many times before but in 1991 he did it with us.’

Riding for Del Tongo, Chioccioli had one sixth place and two fifth places in the three years prior to 1991. The most agonising must have come in 1988, when the young Italian, poised for victory, surrendered the maglia rosa to Andy Hampsten on the now infamous Stage 14, which saw riders battling some of the worst weather ever to hit a Grand Tour.

The Gavia was set upon by a fierce blizzard and few but Hampsten’s 7-Eleven team had brought sufficient kit, so while Hampsten got ski gloves, glasses, woolly hat, extra layers and even a hot drink, Chioccioli got armwarmers and a headband. Even then, Hampsten rode with ice on his bare shins and was a shivering wreck at the line, so it was no surprise when Chioccioli limped home nearly five minutes later. He could hardly have blamed the Colnago he was riding that day, but equally he might well have had much to thank the Pinarello Prologo for, having used a descendent of this bike to scoop three stages on his way to finally being crowned Giro d’italia champion.