Fair point regarding chainstay length and its effect on wheelbase and handling. Two reasons I didn’t go into more detail on that. This piece is already 1300 words and I didn’t want it to be 2000 words. Also, trail and BB drop are the two figures that every builder I talk to leads with. Chainstay length (and builders can feel free to correct me on this) ends up being a response to front center (for weight distribution), which is a result of top tube length and trail, and from front center and chainstay we get wheelbase. Designing around chainstay length would be putting the cart before the horse, though plenty of bike aficionados have talked about chainstay length as a way to discuss a bike’s personality. So, anyway, going into all that would have made the piece TLDR. And I’m sure I already did that to some people.
Now, regarding the lack of Italian geometry in carbon, open molds aren’t a factor because that didn’t exist until ten or so years ago. By then Italian geometry was dead as most of the world’s bees. Everything I’ve been able to find out about Asian production of carbon fiber for Italian brands indicates that no one from those brands made a deliberate choice. The evidence is interesting. There are no abandoned prototypes with low BBs (none that I’ve heard of or seen); it was as if a switch was flicked. Also, the split can be seen in aluminum as well.
This ought to be a joke: How do you tell an Italian-made aluminum bike from an Asian-made aluminum bike? No, not by which one breaks first. Which one has the low BB.
One final thought: That Ernesto Colnago might allow Mike Sinyard to twist his arm on geometry is something I think he’s too proud to allow to happen consciously.