Italvega is a brand of

road bicycle The term road bicycle is used to describe bicycles built for traveling at speed on paved roads. Some sources use the term to mean racing bicycle. Other sources specifically exclude racing bicycles from the definition, using the term to mean a ...

s designed, specified, imported and marketed by the

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

-based bicycle distributor, Lawee, Inc., founded by Ben Lawee, who also created the

Univega Univega is a bicycle brand created during the bike boom of the 1970s by Ben Lawee (1926–2002), who founded Lawee Inc. to design, specify, and import bicycles initially manufactured in Italy by Italvega, and subsequently in Japan by Miyata. Prio ...

and Bertoni bicycle brands. Italvega bikes were designed and hand-built within the noted Torresini workshop at the Torpado factory in

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. They were built beginning in 1970 and continuing through the mid- to late-1970s before manufacturing was moved to

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

under the name Univega. All Italvega bicycles were made in the Torpado factory, but not all were high-end bicycles. Torpado made a broad variety of bicycles for different uses (including worker, comfort, BMT, ATB, and even motorized).

Ben Lawee

Ben Lawee, born in

Baghdad, Iraq Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the list of largest cities in the Arab world, second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the ...

, immigrated to the U.S. at age 19. Lawee attended business school at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, and in 1959 purchased Jones Bicycles, growing the single store into a multi-store chain. He sold the retail chain in 1965 to begin importing

Bianchi Bianchi may refer to: Places *Bianchi, Calabria, a ''comune'' in the Province of Cosenza, Italy Manufacturing *Bianchi Bicycles (F.I.V. Edoardo Bianchi S.p.A.), an Italian manufacturer of bicycles, and former manufacturer of motorcycles and a ...

and

Legnano Legnano (; or ''Lignàn'') is an Italian town and ''comune'' in the north-westernmost part of the Metropolitan City of Milan, Province of Milan, about from central Milan. With 60,259, it is the thirteenth-most populous township in Lombardy. Le ...

bikes, and became the national distributor for

Raleigh Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeas ...

and

Motobécane Motobécane was a French manufacturer of bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles, and other small vehicles, established in 1923. "Motobécane" is a compound of "moto", short for motorcycle; "bécane" is slang for "bike." Motobécane is a different co ...

. Lawee, who had two children, David and Monique, with his wife Ariela, died November 8, 2002.

Models

Models manufactured under the Italvega marque include (in order of increasing quality): *Viva Sport *Nuovo Sport *Nuovo Record *Super Record *Super Speciale *Super Light The top-end models were built with double-butted

Columbus tubing Columbus Tubi is a manufacturer of steel tubing used in bicycle frames, located in Settala, in the Province of Milan. The company was founded in 1919 by A.L. Colombo and was taken over by Colombo's youngest son, Antonio, in 1977. It is now a divis ...

and

Campagnolo Campagnolo is an Italian manufacturer of high-end bicycle components with headquarters in Vicenza, Italy. The components are organised as groupsets (gruppi), and are a near-complete collection of a bicycle's mechanical parts. Campagnolo's flagsh ...

Record and Nuovo Record components. The low-mid level framesets have the inverted triangle Columbus foil decal, while the better models have the rectangle Columbus foil decal. The lowest models have no Columbus decal.

2017 Restart

In 2017, the brand was re-registered in the Netherlands by Nicholas Hurenkamp, who is seeking to fund a production facility in March 2018 through

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

. The new brand markets two models - the ''Super Speciale'' and the ''Nuovo Supersport'', both of which are completely hand painted.

References

External links

* Cycle manufacturers of Italy Cycle manufacturers of the United States {{cycle-manufacturer-stub