Daccordi Noah £7,500

Handmade in Tuscany and built to your exact requirements, Simon Smythe puts an Italian thoroughbred through its paces

- Simon Smythe

Not many Italian bikes are actually made in the bel paese nowadays, and the majority of formerly iconic Italian brands are no longer even owned by their founding families. But Luigi Daccordi, the son of Giuseppe Daccordi who founded the company in 1937, took a different route: instead of sponsoring racing teams and moving production to the Far East, he invested in renewable energy and sustainable manufacturing processes for his factory in Tuscany and continued making bespoke frames in low volumes for discerning customers.

Frame

Daccordi says the Noah, which is the flagship road model, is “a modern frame, built with the best quality of carbon-fiber, aerodynamic, light and stylish”. The Noah is fully made to measure and the customer can even choose the shape of the frame itself: aero, semi-aero or classic. This is the aero option, the semi-aero option loses the seat tube cutout and the classic is a straight seat tube.

A tube-to-tube construction allows Daccordi to offer custom geometry. The carbon tubes – moulded in Italy and made from high-modulus 45deg fibre – are vacuum moulded after assembly and cured at 130°C.

This one was not made to measure – it was built as a display bike for UK importer Racer Rosa and set up for my position by Giuseppe Giannecchini, a WorldTour bike fitter.

The frame weighs a claimed 890g and is no featherweight. With the bulge behind the seat tube that partially shrouds the rear wheel and very hefty down tube, it’s more aero bike shaped, but it doesn’t come with aero data.