3ttt
A History of 3ttt
Mario Dedioniggi was a gifted and ambitious engineer who had spent 10 years working at the Ambrosio factory. He branched away, however, and started his own business in 1961, founding the enterprise Tecnologia del Tubo Torinese in Turin, Italy. The company, which soon used the 3ttt abbreviation, specialised in the production of bars and stems from premium aluminium alloys.
For the era, however, handlebars and contact points were not a big deal. Unlike the variety of shapes, sizes and measurements we are now exposed to, component design was fairly standard, only separated by pantographs or artisan pieces. Dedioniggi, however, established the 3ttt reputation by crafting the world's lightest handlebars and developing aluminium technology (he knew that aluminium was the material of the future). The Superleggero and the Competizione models, the first bars with varying bending shapes, are particularly renowned.
The first handlebar specifically designed for triathlon competitors and the first time trial bar with a bullhorn shape are two examples of the numerous 3ttt inventions. The latter was used by Francesco Moser when he famously set his world hour record in 1984.
At the end of the 1980s, Dedioniggi sold his enterprise, which is still manufacturing bike parts under the '3T' name.