Editors note: You may have seen this bike before, in posts we’ve shared or in the showroom here in the Bay Area. We’ve done what you can do with all great, long lasting bikes and upgraded it w/ the latest parts from Campagnolo (except the wheels which just fit way to well to even think about replacing). But this isn’t about another bike build, it’s our last tribute to Dario Pegoretti and we can’t think of a better way to do it. This is Kalara’s (she runs Above Category) Duende that Dario built for her birthday some 7 years ago or so. It’s been crashed, hard, twice and it’s been beat up and Dario would have had it no other way (not the crashing part, but the getting it dirty part).
This is what Kalara thinks of her Pegoretti:
It’s just a bike. I mean, it is beautiful to look at. And wow, the feeling of riding it! And it has my name on it (literally). And every time I stare at it, I marvel at Dario’s heart and soul and creativity when I discover a new nugget in his mad yet remarkably subtle representation of Latin jazz on every piece of every tube. (Chad had told him I loved Latin jazz.) And every time I touch the frame, I think of Pietro and Jack (Dario’s magnificent wolf of a dog) whose hands (or paws) all touched that frame. And I remember spritzes and espressos, and trying so hard to understand Trentino simply to better bask in the spirit of the man who was spewing out colloquialisms beside me. Is it just a bike? It’s a life, it’s many intersecting lives. It’s art and science and play and spirit and joy. It is a metaphor for all that is right in this world. That’s what my bike is for me.
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