Cinelli SuperCorsa Pista Frameset

Cino Cinelli raced professionally in Italy through the 1940s, and when he founded his company in Milan in 1948, he brought a racer's sensibility to everything he designed. The handlebars, the stems, the pedals — Cinelli's innovations shaped the modern road and track bicycle in ways that are still felt today. He understood, from experience, what a racing frame needs to do. And he built accordingly.

The Cinelli SuperCorsa Pista Frameset is the direct descendant of that original design work. It has been in continuous production since the early 1950s, built today to the same geometries and specifications that Cino Cinelli refined through decades of racing and workshop experimentation. This is not a revival or a heritage re-edition. It is the same frame — still made in Milan, still built entirely from Italian materials, still assembled with the hand-finishing that defined Cinelli's original craft. Very few products in any industry can make that claim honestly. The SuperCorsa Pista makes it without qualification.

The frame is built from Columbus Spirit Super Pista double-butted tubing — a chromoly steel tubeset engineered specifically for track use. Double-butting means variable wall thickness: thicker at the joints where stress concentrates, thinner through the mid-section where it doesn't need to be. The result is a frame that weighs 1,780g in a medium size — not ultralight by carbon standards, but precise for steel, and deliberate. Steel's compliance and damping suit the demands of track riding in ways that stiffer, more reactive materials don't replicate. The conical downtube is a defining detail: its tapered profile concentrates lateral stiffness at the bottom bracket junction, converting sprint power into forward motion without the flex that would otherwise bleed energy in a standing effort. On the boards, that detail matters.

The fork is Columbus SL Pista, 1" threaded, with a flat crown and curved blades — a classic track configuration chosen for precision rather than compliance. The flat crown eliminates the flex of a round crown under cornering load; the curved blades contribute a small amount of damping without compromising steering response. Together they deliver the kind of front-end feedback that track riders depend on: direct, immediate, and honest. The geometry is pure Cinelli track — 73° head tube angle and 75° seat tube angle, with 388mm chainstays across both available sizes. The resulting position is appropriately aggressive for velodrome use without demanding the extreme range of motion that a pure track sprinter's setup requires. It's a frame that works for the criterium-ready track rider as much as the dedicated velodrome competitor.

The SuperCorsa Pista is available in 13 sizes from 49 to 61cm in 1cm increments, with a custom made-to-measure option for riders whose proportions fall outside the standard run. Eight colorways are offered — from the iconic Verde Jaguar and Rosso Ferrari to the understated Titanium Grey and Black Tie. RA Cycles currently stocks Verde Jaguar in sizes 50cm and 52cm. The meticulous paint and finish are part of what the frame is: Cinelli has always treated color as seriously as construction, and on the SuperCorsa, both are held to the same standard.

Design Benefits

1. Columbus Spirit Super Pista double-butted tubing — purpose-built for track use, with variable wall thickness that concentrates material where stress demands it and removes weight where it doesn't.
2. Conical downtube — the tapered profile increases lateral stiffness at the bottom bracket, improving sprint power transfer without adding unnecessary weight to the frame.
3. Flat crown Columbus SL Pista fork — eliminates crown flex under cornering loads and delivers precise, direct steering feedback essential for velodrome and criterium riding.
4. Custom made-to-measure option — Cinelli builds the SuperCorsa Pista in any size between 49 and 61cm in 1cm steps, and offers a fully custom geometry for riders whose fit falls outside the standard range.
5. Unbroken production lineage since the 1950s — the same geometries, the same materials, the same workshop. Riders who want authentic Italian track heritage aren't buying a tribute to the original — they're buying it.

Final Take

The SuperCorsa Pista is what it has always been: the benchmark for classic Italian track framebuilding, made without compromise in Milan, and available to any rider who takes their track setup seriously. At $4,600, it sits at the premium end of steel track frames — and earns it. For the rider who wants to build something that will last decades and ride like nothing else, it is the right answer.