What’s missing from that picture? Officina Battaglin’s Portofino Edizione Anniversario delivers the seemingly impossible – a modern lugged steel road bike with fully internal cable routing for disc brakes and any electronic shifting setup. No external cables is certainly the trend in carbon bikes these days, but we’re still a bit surprised that Battaglin managed to pull it off inside a lugged steel road bike!
Battaglin Portofino modern lugged steel road bike with full internal routing
The beautiful lugged steel Portofino already had our hearts by combining modern oversized tubing, chromed-out lugs, wild cromovelato paint finishes, disc brakes, and custom geometry developed with their namesake Giro/Vuelta double winner. Now adding fully internal cable routing kind of blows our mind as the sickest, cleanest Italian road bike we’ve laid eyes on. If this bike doesn’t make a modern roadie drool, we don’t know what will…
From the original rim brake Portofino just two years ago to the Portofino Disc update last year, I’ve personally been a bit enamored how Officina Battaglin has settled into a niche of building ever more refined steel road bikes inspired by classic designs, but never leaving modern tech behind.
Now celebrating the 40th anniversary of Giovanni Battaglin’s 1981 Giro-Vuelta double win, the lugged Portofino now gets the same fully integrated, hidden cable cockpit setup that we saw recently on their welded steel Power+ road bike. Alex Battaglin, son of Giovanni, and CEO of the custom bike workshop said, “Many customers had been asking about the fully internal cable routing option on our Portofino… to make it possible, we developed our proprietary carbon fork, entirely fabricated in Italy.”
Tech details
Not one to sacrifice on fit or adjustability, the 2021 Portofino Edizione Anniversario is designed to take advantage of a Deda Elementi DCR cockpit setup that combines a separate carbon handlebar and stem that seamlessly route cables into the headset.
Like the Power+ EVO, the custom full-carbon fork is produced by WR Compositi in Italy with a D-shaped 1.125-1.5″ tapered steerer that allows the cables to transition into the inside of the oversized Columbus Spirit HSS steel frame tubing.
Beyond the complex, multi-step fade paint cromovelato process that yields the unique translucent color over chrome look, the 40th anniversary bikes also get a gold-plated badge on the seattube to commemorate Giovanni’s 1981 wins, embedded with a real diamond.
“There’s an incredible amount of painstaking manual work behind this new paint scheme… But we’re delighted with the final result,” according to Alex, and “It goes without saying that the cromovelato colors can be customized according to the owner’s preferences.”
2021 Battaglin Portofino – Pricing, limited availability & options
Only 70 limited edition Portofino 2021 Edizione Anniversario framesets will be produced, each with their own serial number plate. Half of those are set aside for previous Battaglin bike owners, and the remaining 35 are likely to sell out soon – all direct from the Battaglin workshop in northern Italy.
Can you really put a price on unparalleled Italian road bike craftsmanship like this? Yes, yes you can. And it’s 5000€, for the custom-sized, custom-painted frameset. But that’s really just the beginning. Battaglin will work with you to paint-to-match your seatpost, stem & bar if you want, and they’ll be happy to organize a complete build kit too – whether you want an all-Italian build with Campagnolo or any other suitably premium finishing kit. Get in touch with Officina Battaglin to claim your bike in the limited run.
