Based in Loria, north eastern Italy, not far from Vicenza, Gipiemme have a long history as one of the smaller players in the Italian bicycle industry. Their name is the initials ‘GPM’ pronounced as a word. They are sometimes referred to as ‘GPM’ and have branded some product as ‘GPM’.

There are a number of aspects of Gipiemme’s history that are slightly mysterious to me. In the way of many small Italian companies, Gipiemme’s Italian web site, www.gipiemme.com, makes much of a single heroic figure in their history, Giovanni Bernardi. Bernardi is pictured with the leading cyclists over the decades, starting with Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali in photos dating from the early 1950s. It is rude to say it, but Giovanni Bernardi seems to have been the poor man’s Tullio Campagnolo - a marketing professional might ‘position’ him more politely as ‘the affordable Tullio Campagnolo’. All of which makes perfect sense - and is vaguely consistent with a Le Cycle image of a 1948 derailleur branded Gipiemme, a fork type that is somewhat similar to a Campagnolo Corsa.

However Gipiemme’s, very official looking, British, web site, www.gipiemme.co.uk, clearly states that the company was founded in 1964 in Milano. That the company started working with Campagnolo in the 1970’s and moved to the Vicenza area in 1974. This site makes the very reasonable claim that GPM stands for Gran Premio della Montagna, the high points on mountain stages of the Giro d’Italia, at which spot prizes and points for the King of the Mountains jersey (Maglia Verde) can be won.

Finally I have been sent a scan of a Technociclo brochure stating that Gipiemme was spun-out of Technociclo in the 1970s and headed up by one Giovanni Pappalardo in Milano. Technociclo were a reasonably well known manufacturer of steel frame components and are often mentioned in the same breath as Gipiemme. This brochure makes the perfectly credible claim that GPM stands for Giovanni Pappalardo Milano.

Why have one truth when you can have three!

In terms of derailleurs, the story is also very confused and confusing, but it might include the following:

• First off, there is Le Cycle image of a 1948 derailleur, discussed above.
• Second up Gipiemme are often alleged to have manufactured a copy of the Campagnolo Nuovo Record in the 1970’s, but I have never seen one.
• Sometime in the early 1980s Gipiemme rebranded a series of Simplex derailleurs. These possibly included the Simplex SLJ5500, the Simplex LJ4000 and possibly some cheaper SX models. The logo used black writing on a gold background.
• Sometime around 1984 Gipiemme modernised their series of Simplex derailleurs. It now included the Simplex SLJ6600, the Simplex LJ4000 and the Simplex SX610 models. The logo continued to be black writing on a gold background. The groupset names may be Cronospecial, Special, Special Pista, Cronosprint Aero and Cronosprint Economy.
• In 1986 Gipiemme had a very successful World Championships. It now added the famous World Championship coloured bands to the logo on its versions of the Simplex SLJ6600, the Simplex LJ4000 and the Simplex SX610 models.
• In 1987 Gipiemme seems to have parted company with Simplex and moved its derailleur business to Campagnolo. A contemporary catalogue shows two Campagnolo-derived derailleurs The first is the rather elegant Gipiemme Exploit (which also has a slew of other names). This is a slant parallelogram design in Campagnolo's Graphite finish. The early version of this had a conventional outer pulley cage plate with a perforation at the guide pulley. The second design was a variant on the Campagnolo 990 in a highly polished finish with Gipiemme rather than Campagnolo branding. I have never seen an example of this marvellous object. The groupset names may be Cronospecial, Cronospecial Pista, Cronosprint and Sprint. Or perhaps they were Cronospecial, Special, Cronosprint Classic and Cronosprint Bagarre. Who can say?
• For 1988, Gipiemme appears to have changed the outer pulley cage plate on the Exploit to a more 'aero' design with no perforation at the guide pulley. It seems to have dropped its variant of the Campagnolo 990 and instead has adopted a number of affordable SunRace models, artfully branded with rather tackily stuck on logos. The groupset names appear to be Bagarre, Azzurro, Pista and MTB K2.
• By 1991 the Gipiemme derailleur range was composed entirely of fairly undistinguished SunRace models.
• Gipiemme continues in the bicycle components business to this day - something that cannot be said of many other Italian companies listed on this site. They do not currently include derailleurs in their range.