The Radavist

Not Chaotic, But Like Jazz

“We are all building on what Dario left us.”

On August 23rd, 2018 Italian framebuilder, artist, music aficionado, cancer survivor, and living legend Dario Pegoretti unexpectedly passed away. At only 62 years old he had made an indelible mark on the cycling industry. After building uncredited high-end custom frames for names such as Induran, Cipollini and Pantani he started his own company, Pegoretti Cicli. Both a traditionalist and iconoclast Dario never wavered from his love of steel while also constantly playing with innovations in technique, frame design, and painting. In all of these, he was a renowned master.

If you had the opportunity to have Dario Pegoretti paint one of your bikes, would you? When Jaybe originally contacted David Kirk about making him a classic road bike, he inquired about just that. At the time, Dario wasn’t interested. Perhaps he was too busy or just didn’t want to. For whatever reason, it didn’t happen, so Jaybe got his bike painted and began riding it every day. We even documented it here on the site. Months later, Dario finally expressed an interest in painting the frame, leaving Jaybe in a bind. Should he send it to him? Or just keep it as-is? I mean, it’d be a tough call for sure, especially with the uncertainty of how Dario would paint the bike. What if Jaybe didn’t like the final product? After much back and forth, Jaybe sent the frame to Pegoretti and a few weeks later, it arrived at his door. The crazy thing is, while Dario had the frame, Jaybe didn’t hear a peep from him.

It was a complete surprise and one that was well worth it, in my opinion…