De Rosa (bicycles)
De Rosa is a bicycle manufacturer in Cusano Milanino. The company is regarded as " one of the most prestigious Italian frame forging, whose noble products are driven by many sizes of bicycle scene."
The company founder Ugo de Rosa was born on January 27, 1934 in Milan. He is a mechanic and engineer. His first employment in a bicycle shop. In 1952 he opened his own shop and found himself racing bikes ago. Raphael Geminiani, a then well-known racing driver, asked him to build a framework for his participation in the Giro d' Italia.
De Rosa was known among other things as a teacher of Eddy Merckx. Ugo de Rosa built for him the lugged steel frame for the lightest road bike that was ever used in a UCI race. This only 5.750 kg wheel turned Merckx 1972 Hour Record on. After end of his career learned Eddy Merckx by Ugo de Rosa the craft of frame building and started his own company, which today supplies professional teams in the Tour de France and other races. Francesco Moser and also Miguel Indurain rode on wheels of De Rosa.
As the only manufacturer in the world De Rosa specifies the frame height from top edge of bottom bracket shell, all other manufacturers measure from center of bottom bracket. Bicycles of this manufacturer are considered to be elegant, many details to be reworked by hand. Unlike many other manufacturers De Rosa is rather conservative in design issues and does not make any fashion trend. We only made racing bicycles.
Steel frame
As one of the few suppliers for the professional cycling appropriate real racing bikes De Rosa has TIG - welded steel frame in the program. The heart as a brand logo can be found in steel frame on the sleeves and the head tube of the fork again, so you can still see de Rosa frame after resprays. As a frame material be double-butted Columbus tubes, today mainly the most significant design SLX used. This tubing bicycles are produced, which are at the lower limit of the mass limits of the UCI (6.8 kg).
New trends
Since 1990 there are wheels made of aluminum and titanium alloys. In Italy, further manufactured since 2001 carbon frame, initially available with aluminum head tube ( King), meanwhile, are also the control tubes made of carbon (Model "King X-Light ").
The approximately 9000 annually produced frames are handmade. The founder builds itself for about 20 frames per year.