Monday Blues: Tiso (@ Interbike 2012)...

In covering Interbike for the past couple years I have discovered that I actually know very little about the scope of the bicycle industry. Turns out it is vast, what I / we see in our various local bike shops (LBS) is a small fraction of what is out there. We know Campy, and Shimano, and SRAM, maybe Suntour and a few other names as well. We know Specialized, and Trek, BMC, Felt, Giant, and many others who have made their mark in the industry. We know these names because they are what we see each time we walk through the doors of our LBS, flip through the pages of a catalog or magazine, or scroll down along the posts of our favorite websites. They are the big names of the bike world, and there is nothing wrong with that. Lay a piece of paper flat on a table, and these are the names that face up at you, which you can read. What you have to realize is that there is an entire other side to that piece of paper, and on that side are innumerable small companies we have never heard of. Some of these may make products which they sell under their own name, others may manufacture products for others to put their names on. One of the companies you would find on the flip-side of the paper, one I would wager most of us are unfamiliar with (I do think I have come across the name before, but really know nothing of them), is Tiso.

Were I not a fan of Maurizio Fondriest, and bikes which are now made in his name, I would still be oblivious to the name Tiso. Tiso is an Italian manufacturer, whose components were shown on a single Fondriest bicycle at Interbike this year, and on a wall display nearby (at least those are the only places I noticed them). After a ten year stint machining bicycle components for the bigger names in the industry, the company began to produce under their own name in 1979. Company founder Luciano Tiso turned over daily operations to his sons, Davide and Claudio in 2005. The company produces a range of components and upgrade accessories including both rear and front derailleurs (Campy compatible), derailleur pulleys, headsets, cassettes, chainrings, bar stems, bolts, lock rings and skewers, for both road and mountain bikes. Tiso machined parts are as beautiful as they get and, were I in the market, would be well worth a trip to Santa Barbara, where the nearest authorized dealer (Fas Track Bicycles) is located. Sorry about that all, I should have confirmed first, but I did contact Dave at the shop who informed me that they are no longer a Tiso dealer.

As with all these reviews from Interbike 2012, I have not received any prior compensation, nor promise of later compensation, from the above mentioned company, nor am I connected to them in any way. Views expressed are the result of my observations and subsequent research only.