Aaron Barcheck

Customer Profile: Pete Lopinto

Pete Lopinto has been a Mosaic customer for nearly as long as Mosaic has been in business. He has owned three variations of our road titanium model and has watched the evolution of our innovation and design (both in the way we build bicycles and in the way we do business). So, in our eyes, he seemed like the perfect person to help us kick off a new series of Mosaic customer profiles.

Pete's Cycling Background

Pete has been riding and racing since he was 12. He raced mountain bikes until he was 19, when he switched to road full time. In 2001, when he was 20 years old, Pete joined Ofoto Cycling team and raced professionally until 2008. He's ridden all over the world, has done all of the big tours, but was mainly a big crit racer (and "loved banging bars"). Now that he's retired, Pete rides strictly for fun. "No computers, no power meters, no Strava, no racing, just me on the CO roads I love. It's my happy place."

Pete's RT-1s: An Evolution

Pete bought his first Mosaic titanium road frame in 2010, when we were just getting started. As he recalls, "it was very classic with a press in headset, external cables, smaller diameter tubes, threaded BB."

In 2012, Pete came back for an upgrade. It was almost a complete opposite of his first build: big oversized tubes, extended seat mast, tapered headtube, oversized press-in BB, full internal electric set up. His second Mosaic titanium road frame was the first version of what we now call the RT-1 (back then we were thinking of calling that model the Super because we wanted to emulate the popular roads routes out of Boulder: Super Flag, Super James, Super Mag, etc...).

Earlier this year Pete came back in our shop and declared he needed a new bike. With that we made him his current rig. Pete says this third bike is "the best in my opinion, and a blend of the other two bikes and the new innovations Mosaic has undertaken."

His 2014 RT-1 (pictured below) has a standard seat post, threaded BB, an oversized headtube and slightly oversized tubes. It has a full internal electric setup, which includes the new top tube internal brake cable and electric wiring. Pete: "It is as clean as it gets!"

Some things on Pete's three road frames have not changed. They've all been titanium- made to be stiff and with the same general geometry.

Our butted tubes and new internal routing for Di2 make for some of Pete's favorite additions to his newest Mosaic RT-1.

Pete, Why Do You Keep Coming Back to Mosaic?

"Mosaic is family. You continue to pump out great work and evolve as a small company while not just bowing down to what everyone else is doing. And the welds...come on, really? The shop itself continues to be more pro and more dialed with better machinery, better coffee, and better booze. I love that at Mosaic, you give such access to your clients. Your door is open (literally) and it is so amazing that I can watch my ride come to life and really be a part of it."