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 that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

-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. Pri ...

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

Padua Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 20 ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

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

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

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 ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

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

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, 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 and

Legnano Legnano (; or ''Lignàn'') is a town and ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Milan, province of Milan, about from central Milan. With 60,259, it is the thirteenth-most populous township in Lombardy. Legnano is located in the ...

bikes, and became the national distributor for

Raleigh Raleigh ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in the state (after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte) ...

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 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, alternative finance, to fund projects "withou ...

. 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