Sarolea 500 Super Sport Model 23 Mario Colombo 1927 Circuito del Lario photo

Description

A superb and rare photo of Italian
Mario Colombo
standing behind his
Sarolea 500 Supersport Model 23
racing machine shortly after competing in the
1927
edition of the famous Italian
Circuito del Lario
race.
Mario Colombo
was born in
1902 in
a small town with the name Gorla Minore, near the Northern Italian city of
Varese
.
At a relatively young age he became a factory rider for the Italian Frera factory.
This was at the time the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world.
Frera had an extensive model line, amongst the bikes in production were quite a few very powerful production racing machines.
No wonder that
Colombo
’s career took off after he signed with Frera.
Later on he rode with Sarolea (1927). Sunbeam, Ganna, Miller,
Aquila
and Norton.
Mario Colombo won many large Italian road races, hill-climbs and a few Grand Prix races.
He also won the Targa Florio twice.
On this photo we see
Colombo
just after his participation in the Circuito del Lario race of 1927.
He retired, but won that year with the photographed Sarolea the races ridden at the circuits of
Verona
,
La Spezia
and Monti Peloritani.
Colombo
is seen standing behind his
Sarolea Model 23 500cc Super Sport
.
This magnificent 2 OHV racing machine had a bore and stroke of 80,5 x
97 mm
and easily delivered in
1927 a
whopping power output of 20 HP at 4,800 r.p.m.
This was more then impressive at the time.
The famous Italian
Circuito
del
Lario
roadrace was an extremely heavy race which was organized between 1921 and 1939.
The circuit consisted of public roads which were closed during the race.
The Circuito del Lario was located between the two legs of the mountainous
Lake
Como
in
Northern Italy
.
Its nickname the “ Italian T.T.” was definitely deserved. The circuit was no less then
22.7 miles
(
36.5 km
) long and counted a mind blowing amount of 300 curves! Of those
300, a
total of 50 were hairpins since also the famous Ghisallo mountain pass is part of the track!
The height difference between the lowest and the highest point of the circuit is
1,805 feet
(
550 metres
).
To cover that difference, the riders and the bikes have to cross besides the mountainous hairpins, also the many longer and shorter curves combined with shorter and longer straights.
And all of that combined with a gruelingly poor road surface.
Sarolea
was a very famous Belgian motorcycle brand that reached absolute fame in racing.
The factory was found by Joseph Sarolea as early as
1850 in
the Belgian city of
Herstal
.
At first the factory concentrated on military arms production.
In 1892 bicycles were added to the production lines and in 1902 the first motorcycle was build by Sarolea.
The 300cc and 500cc sidevalve models did really well, they were excellent motorcycles.
In
1914 a
50 degree 703cc V-twin taken into production.
It was a luxury, gorgeous machine.
When motorcycle production started it quickly became clear that Sarolea build motorcycles that were perfectly suitable for racing.
Before long the factory started building pukka racing machines.
The 500cc Model
23 in
this aspect became legendary. In the 1930’s the Sarolea factory campaigned a virtually unbeatable OHC racing machine.
After World War II Sarolea worked together with other Belgian motorcycle manufacturers like FN untill the factory folded in 1957.
In the 1950s Sarolea build a 500cc parallel twin that was also sold in the
U.S.A.
, however under the name “ Atlantic “.
This non period photo reflects a very interesting and historic piece of motorcycling and Saroléa history. Therefore it is printed in a nice large format of ca. 8" x 10.3" (ca. 20 x
26 cm
).
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