Technician with bike repair shop in Umbria, Italy
Bike Repair for Passion
My name is Mirco Cetra, I live in Torgiano, in the province of Perugia (Umbria), and I'm a biker. I have a degree in mechanics, which has always been one of my passions, along with mechanical construction and DIY. I also enjoy keeping up to date with developments in science and research on composite materials. In my spare time, I specialize in carbon fiber bike repairs and work as a turner in a railway workshop. I first discovered cycling in the late 1990s and was instantly hooked; a sport that offers freedom and challenges the body is the ultimate in my opinion. Simply practicing the sport, however, wasn't enough. I read, or rather, devoured, everything there was to know about cycling, and within a year, I built my first carbon road frame, with SCAPIN geometry and made from polystyrene tubes covered in vacuum-packed polymerized carbon skins. Believe it or not, it worked, and better than the original I owned at the time. and has never suffered any breakages.
From then on, it was a continuous evolution. I currently personally build the frames and components (cranksets, headsets, pedals) for the bikes I race on local MTB circuits, achieving good results. In recent years, I've also built custom frames for friends who have requested them, and they still race on them without any problems. My bikes still don't break, despite the numerous crashes that inevitably happen to those who race and train on MTBs. From building carbon frames from scratch to repairing damaged ones was a very short step: it was 2001 when a dealer friend asked me to repair the seat tube of a crashed Colnago C 40. With my many years of experience repairing windsurf boards, I accepted this new challenge, albeit with a certain amount of skepticism. I doubted the long-term durability of the repair. However, this first attempt was an immediate success, far beyond my expectations.
To put it simply, I've been repairing carbon frames and components since 2001, and to my knowledge, no repair has failed since. (I'd like to dispel a myth here: carbon fiber, and composite frames in general, are absolutely repairable. As for bicycles, these repairs, in most cases, do not significantly alter the frame's weight, nor do they compromise the rigidity of the bike's structure: it's virtually impossible to notice any difference in performance in a repaired bike.) It all started as a hobby, but I now work regularly for numerous shops in Umbria and central Italy, which have decided to offer carbon fiber repair services to their customers, and, of course, also to private individuals who request them. Up until now, I've never used any type of advertising; simple word of mouth has worked, but now I've decided to expand this business, encouraged by the steady increase in work, but above all by the smiles that appear on the faces of those who come to see me as soon as they see their repaired bike frames.
Self Made Biker
When I'm truly passionate about something, I want to explore it deeply and master it completely. In fact, not content with competing on my own bikes, I've also started to take care of my own physical training. Since I don't like to improvise, I research and read any book that covers new cycling training techniques, applying what I've learned first to myself and then to my fellow competitive cyclists. I've been using an SRM power meter since 2004, so I've developed a good understanding of how these tools are used in training methods. Furthermore, my knowledge of English and the internet allow me to stay up-to-date on the latest methods in this field. Specifically, I'm referring to the use of the "WKO + Training Peaks" software for processing the data provided by the power meter during training and cycling races...but that's another story, and I hope to tell you more about it later if the results are positive.
Experiences with compounds
While my cycling adventure began a little over 10 years ago, my introduction to carbon fiber began much earlier: my experience with composite materials spans 20 years. In the early 1990s, my passion wasn't bicycles, but the wonderful sport of windsurfing. Of course, it wasn't long before I started building my own boards at home, using the legendary carbon fiber and VACUUM SANDWICH technology. A local factory, Drops, well-known among those in the know, noticed my creations at the time and asked me for a collaboration. I began producing some carbon fiber board components for them—in my spare time, as they say. The collaboration continued for a few years, until the company decided to relocate its production operations to more economically advantageous locations abroad. Shortly thereafter, I discovered cycling.
A life like Archimedes
Building is my oldest and truest passion. My first experiences date back to 38 years ago. At the age of 8, I began making bows and arrows, later moving on to the production of gunpowder and related weapons of war: bombs, rifles, and pistols. Fortunately, around the age of 13, an unsuccessful experiment convinced me to abandon these dangerous activities, and the following year I discovered engines with the purchase of a Vespa 50. Over the next two years, I immediately became the go-to person in the Perugia area for 2-stroke engine tuning. Even then, I loved to research in depth, voraciously reading everything available on the subject, especially the legendary Mototecnica, a cult industry magazine for those who loved to delve deeply into technical aspects and not limit themselves to the usual barroom chatter. I haven't changed much since then. Building my own surfboards and bikes by hand was actually just the natural evolution of my greatest passion: researching, understanding how things work, building them, and improving them when possible.
