For over a year I had wanted to visit Tiziano Zullo in his workshop in Castelnuovo del Garda (on the southern shores of Lake Garda). We had been in email communication for some time but this was our first chance to meet up. Zullo was a name I had been aware of for some time as a quality Italian steel builder still building his own frames and not contracting out which, as we have learnt, is very common.

Tiziano Zullo and his wife Elena (who speaks perfect English, fortunately for us) run a small shop through which they sell their frames to local cyclists. The workshop is to the rear of the shop and it is here where Tiziano and his colleague spends most of his time. In it’s heyday Zullo was producing up to 4000 frames a year and for a few years in the 90’s provided the Dutch TVM team with bikes which were ridden in all the Grand Tours and major Classics of the day. Nowadays production runs at a couple of hundred hand-crafted steel framesets a year. Tiziano builds using both Deddaccia and Columbus tubing (depending on the model). The range includes both contemporary tig-welded steel models such as the Inqubo (Dedacia 16.5) and the Vergine (Columbus XCR) alongside retro-styled lugged models and even a Tour ‘91 replica model, a homage to the Zullo supplied TVM team of the era.
It was easy to agree with Tiziano and Elena to represent their brand in the UK, frames are being built for us right now and will soon be in the shop. The reaction of the journalists with us to the news suggested we had made the right decision.

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