Just prior to the release of Rizzoli's "Cinelli: The Art and Design of the Bicycle" last October, Antonio Colombo sat for a rare interview on the occasion of the Milan edition of the 2012 Bicycle Film Festival. As the president of Cinelli since Columbus tubing bought it in 1978, Colombo has overseen the continued growth of Cino Cinelli's eponymous company—founded in 1948, upon his retirement from the pro race circuit—through the contemporary cycling boom.
In the subtitled video interview, Colombo covers many of the same points that he mentioned at the Designers and Books Fair last fall, where he spoke as part of a panel on bicycles and design, concluding that "good design is good not only for the company that makes the product but [also for] the whole of society."
As for the book itself (Colombo kindly signed my copy after the talk), a pair of three-star reviews on Amazon note that the book—per its title—is largely focused on the current incarnation of the company, featuring high-resolution, full-bleed images of the company's innovations since 1979 at the expense of the technical nitty-gritty of, say, Cino's bivalent hub. This is a fair assessment, more a caveat emptor to fans looking for a full history of the company than a critique of the book itself. While it's not perfect—frankly, I was a little put off by the proportions of the text within the layout—it's certainly an outstanding visual compendium of the aspirational cycling brand (especially for those of you who are familiar with the work of Garrett Chow). It so happens that Cinelli has also posted a short promotional video of the book along with the interview..
