Zullo Zullo produce a small range of individually built custom steel framesets in their small workshop in Castelnuovo del Garda on the shores of Lake Garda near Verona. All the frames are built and painted on site, nothing is contracted out, Tiziano Zullo himself building the majority of frames himself. Although relatively unknown in the UK the Zullo name has a long and interesting history:-
"Tiziano Zullo was born in 1952 at Stallavena, a small village close to Verona in the North of Italy. His family came from “Zulli”, a little mountain village. Tiziano started racing at the age of fourteen. He road raced in the summer, and spent the winters racing cyclo-cross. He raced for about ten years in both regional and national races. In the early seventies, Tiziano came into contact with the world of frame building through the Italian artisans that were renowned for their skills. Soon, he too was building frames.
The very start was spent on a steep learning curve. Though many had offered a helping hand, very few delivered on their promise. Slowly but surely he grew his small business. Eventually he would supply frames to some better known Italian companies. As well as supplying these other companies, he also sold frames within his local area under his trademark ‘Zullo’. From about this time, ‘Zullo’ frames were supplied to amateur teams in Verona. From 1978 he was able to export his brand to countries like Germany, France, the USA and Australia.
In 1985 he crossed paths with top Dutch professional team TVM. This would lead to Zullo being the frame supplier of the team from 1986 until 1992. The team was well known for such top professionals as Phil Anderson, Robert Millar, Dimitri Konychev, Jesper Skibby and Scott Sunderland.
The TVM team utilised the best of frame technology available at the time. Using everything from Columbus SL, SLX, MAX and MS on road, time trial, track and even cross bikes. Zullo frames would be ridden on the roads of Milan San Remo, the Northern Classics and the Tours De France, Giro d’Italia, La Vuelta and World Championships." 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 |
